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CHRIS ENDREY FROM FUN MACHINE it. I didn’t really get into creating until after undergrad when I was 21 – I finally saw how it was all play instead of work. When I got to that stage I became happy trying any instrument. Inspirations The White Stripes. Far out, their comfort 2. in taking risks and the real energy they have comes through everything they do. For the same reason, I listen to a lot of hip hop. I’ve spent some time crying to the passion of ’60s soul music. But really, anyone you can just put on and hear that they really mean what they’re singing and playing. That’s beauty. Your Band Fun Machine is four people connected 3. by the idea that we are free to do what we

Growing Up On any given day Mum’d be belting out 1. some Elton John or Les Mis at the top of her lungs. I was and am heroine-addicted to Disney (saw The Little Mermaid five times

at the movies). Dad’s always played vintage guitars and has a very healthy collection of rock records. He still sends me stuff. Like many people, I had piano lessons growing up but wasn’t too engaged and dropped

want and pursue our ideas to the death. This takes a lot of trust and confidence in each other, which manifests most obviously in live shows where we’ll mix anything around to keep ourselves – and hopefully crowds – enjoying it. We all have different musical tastes and playing styles, which leads to a unique mix of ideas and songwriting when we work together. This question is probably best answered in hearing our songs or coming to our shows, which I genuinely recommend doing.

The Music You Make For some reason, even after years of 4. playing, this question doesn’t get any easier. Pop I guess. Punk attitude and ideas without the matching aesthetic. We have a childish wonder at the world with an adult’s discontent with many things, all wrapped in a leadership confidence to thrust through it and celebrate the joy. That’s why, when asked, we often say we make sex-pop, I think. Music, Right Here, Right Now Music is tricky. Like most of the arts, 5. it can be really dispiriting wading through works to find the diamonds that resonate. Particularly with real pressures on musicians to get on a social trend or make stuff that sells. There’s a dangerous amount of work where people are projecting themselves rather than ideas, which can be very ugly indeed. But oh, those diamonds. Those real connections are such inspiration that no matter the limitations, we never really stop loving it all, do we? Where: MUM at The World Bar When: Friday August 30

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BILLY BRAGG The Beards

BEARDS, BABY

You have two things to do on Saturday September 7. The first is to make a tedious decision between two smooth-faced politicians (who don’t even respect the country enough to grow a beard) and their all-too-smooth policies for various non-beardy issues around Australia. Once that’s through, celebrate World Beard Day (as if you didn’t know that’s a thing) by going to see The Beards at the Annandale. There’ll be beardy bands, beardrelated games, and countless numbers of those terrific tufts of chin, neck and cheek hair that make a man a man. Also on the bill is Dave Callan (who has a beard, obviously), and other hirsute acts like Jackson Firebird, The Stiffys and Manchoir. Don’t feel bad about skipping the election coverage. Kevin Rudd, Tony Abbott, Laurie Oakes – they’ll all shave that day. How unnatural.

Not to be boastful (sorry) but Billy Bragg has announced an intimate concert in Sydney showcasing his new album – and it’ll be his only performance while in Australia. Tooth And Nail, Bragg’s first album in five years, reflects on some of the uncertain times in which we live at a personal level, and was produced by Grammy Award winner Joe Henry. According to Bragg, the album has “soul, country and folk music influences to explore the ups and downs of relationships that have stood the test of time.” Bragg will perform at the Factory Theatre in Marrickville on Friday September 13.

BUILDING BRIDGES

Building Bridges, an initiative presented by the Refugee Action Coalition and the Refugee Art Project, is returning this year to raise funds and awareness for the need for a more humanitarian approach to those seeking asylum in Australia. The festival, which began last year, will feature various Aussie acts including the Rhythm Hunters, Mohsen Soltani, Hazy Cloud, Dirty Sweet Nothings and Terry Mocsari. There will be guest speeches from refugee advocates and those who have achieved asylum in Australia. The festival will be held at The Standard in Darlinghurst on Friday August 30 from 7pm-12am. Tickets are $15 if pre-booked, and $20 at the door.

GREAT GIG IN THE SKY

If you’re starting to feel like just another brick in the wall, you might need to check out The Great Gig In The Sky, a concert paying homage to the best works of Pink Floyd. Put together by CCEntertainment, the concert is entering its tenth year of production, and will feature guest vocals by Mitchell Anderson (from The Voice), Spencer Jones, Emma Kirk, Jenelle Watkins, and Krishna Jones. The Great Gig In The Sky will be landing at Sutherland Entertainment Centre on Saturday October 12, The Factory Theatre on Friday October 25, Dee Why RSL on Saturday October 26 and Lizotte’s in Newcastle on Saturday November 9.

Seabellies

BAM BAM BAM

Seabellies’ new album was recorded in Melbourne, Sydney and Berlin. Overall, it’s been in production since 2011, and four different drum kits were used just for their new single, ‘It’s Alright’. Suffice to say a fair amount of time, thought, effort, and drumming (all that drumming!) went into this one. To accompany the single and the album (which will be released later this year), Seabellies will be embarking on a string of headlining dates, accompanied by I, A Man. Their show reaches the Small Ballroom in Newcastle on Saturday September 14 and Spectrum in Sydney on Friday October 11.

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Billy Bragg photo by Andy Whale

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five things WITH

THIS SANCTUARY to get them all. Much more than just amazing music, it’s the passion that bands like Sleeping with Sirens have; always giving the audience their best, at their live shows and on new albums. Your Band Ben Tan: We are a five3. piece band that grew up as

Growing Up Inspirations Renee Sieff: I was born into Brendan Tan: Fall Out Boy, 1. 2. a family surrounded by music. Panic! at the Disco, Paramore, With a music business alongside my upbringing, it was natural for me to have a good ear and pitch. I remember seeing Aqua’s video clips for the first time and loved every single one of their songs! ‘Barbie Girl’ was the anthem of my childhood. The rest of the band all started from a young age learning their instruments to be the best they can.

A Day To Remember, Sleeping with Sirens – the list gets pretty long but these bands are amazing. I remember first hearing Paramore in high school from a classmate and immediately getting all their albums when I got home that day. Similar stories follow for the rest of my favourites – hearing one song and having

friends in the Hills area in Sydney. Our band consists of vocalist Renee Sieff, bassist Sam Sudhakar, guitarists Neil Burmester and Ben Tan, and drummer Brendan Tan. We grew up as five friends loving the same music and jamming out making the music we wanted to make. We recently have worked on our upcoming album Keep Talking, Please, with our producer and engineer Brandon Gillies and Ben Whincop. The Music You Make Neil Burmester: There’s 4. something about the studio environment that can bring something out of your writing that you wouldn’t find in the everyday. When we were writing this album we were listening to everything pop rock, pop punk and even

hardcore. The best thing about writing is that the music we make is what we want to hear. The songs are real to us and we hope that they resonate with our fans too. Once this album is released we will definitely be touring it as much as we can. If you come watch our live show you can expect lots of energy and interaction. Our goal for when we play a show is to connect with people. Music, Right Here, Right Now 5. Sam Sudhakar: The music scene seems to always be pumping out good stuff, even if it is doing a complete cycle of what’s already been done, I can always find something new in everything. So that’s always something I get stoked on and it’s what pushes us as a band to contribute back into the scene. I guess hopefully our music can do for others what the music scene does for us. Where: Spectrum, Darlinghurst / Risen Festival 2013 When: Wednesday August 28 / Sunday September 29

CLOUD CONTROL

All this cloudy weather must be a sign from the gods, because guess what? Cloud Control are back and they’re set to spread the love all over Australia. The band’s new psych-inspired album Dream Cave has added a unique twist to their sound; now we’re giving you the chance to get a glimpse of the new Cloudies. For the chance to win a double pass to their Thursday September 12 show at the Metro Theatre, email freestuff@thebrag. com and tell us the year Cloud Control released their debut LP, Bliss Release.

JACK CARTY

We love it when our favourite artists try something new, don’t you? Sydney-viaBellingen lad Jack Carty recently put out his collaboration with local producer Casual Psychotic, The Predictable Crisis Of Modern Life. The record moves away from Carty’s comfort zone and explores new sounds, beats and vocal styles. Carty’s touring the record all over the country, including at Brighton Up Bar on Friday September 6. We’ve got double pass goodness to give away – all you have to do is tell us what it is about modern life that stresses you out most. Answers to freestuff@thebrag.com, and then perhaps to your shrink.

FBI SOCIAL

There’s no excuse to be antisocial this week with all the live music goodness that FBi Social has in store. Bring your packed sandwiches and let Wheat Fields keep your Lunchbreak entertaining on Wednesday August 28. On Thursday August 29 it’s Alexander Cross launching their single ‘Young Lovers’ with God K, She Falls Down Stairs and Cherax Destructor. Friday August 30 is all about loud guitars with Yes I’m Leaving, Narrow Lands, Milkk and Sour Cream.

Deerhunter

CLASH OF THE BANDS

FITZ FRENZY

DEERHUNTER

They’ve become near-permanent fixtures of the East Coast indie scene, and now Atlanta’s Deerhunter are plotting a return to Oz. Already announced on the Meredith Music Festival lineup, the five-piece has released a string of sideshow dates including Sydney’s The Hi-Fi on Tuesday December 10. Frontman Bradford Cox leaves a trail of destruction on every stage he graces, so it’s sure to be a good’un.

SOUNDWAVE 2014

And to think they told us not to expect (quite) as much as last time. The Soundwave 2014 lineup has dropped, and it’s a treat. A rejuvenated Green Day will headline the tour in February and March next year, joined by Avenged Sevenfold and Stone Temple Pilots (with Chester Bennington). Alice In Chains, Placebo, Megadeth, DevilDriver and Korn are there as well, on a list of 50 acts in the first announcement with more to come. The Sydney event happens at Sydney Olympic Park on Sunday February 23. You done good, Soundwave – you done good.

VIOLENT SOHO

If Violent Soho’s most recent single ‘In the Aisle’ tickled your fancy, then you’ll be glad to know the Brisbane quartet are coming to Sydney in October. The tour will follow the release of the band’s highly anticipated album Hungry Ghost, which they have been working on for the past three years. Supporting Violent Soho will be Sydney-based garage punk rockers Straight Arrows. It all goes down at Oxford Art Factory on Friday October 25. 10 :: BRAG :: 527 :: 26:08:13

Tim Fitz is a name that’s buzzing around town, and rightfully so. A finalist in this year’s FBi Northern Lights competition he has also played shows alongside Flume, Elizabeth Rose, Oh Mercy and Matt Corby. His latest single ‘Happiness Is Tugging At Your Heart’ and fourth EP Unscene meld acoustic with the electronic to create his unique sound. He is launching Unscene at Brighton Up Bar on August 31 with support from The Hello Morning and Valar.

Bree De Rome

ROAMING DE ROME

Hailing from the Gold Coast and from musical times gone by is Bree De Rome. Her style brings back ’50s rock’n’roll, country, and sweet and dreamy ’60s pop to our digitised ears. She’ll be in town on Friday October 4 for Kittens at Spectrum to launch her debut EP Bag of Bones. It features co-written songs with Sally Seltmann, Adrian Deutsch (Red Riders) and Bryan Estepa.

TRUTH FOR THE YOUTH

Waterloo Skate Park is the venue for an allday, all ages, free event to enjoy the springtime weather in style. Truth For The Youth promises an alternative to mainstream pop for kids in the inner city – and that can only be a good thing, amirite? On the bill for Saturday October 26 are Kobra Kai and Foreigndub DJs, plus there’s a skate competition featuring pro skater Roberto Fernandez. Some of the DJs mixing on the day will include participants of Weave Youth Services’ free Step Up Education Program, servicing disadvantaged 16-to-24-year-olds from the communities of Sydney, Redfern and Waterloo.

Dyson Stringer & Cloher

IN THE DEEP END

Melbourne rock and rollers The Deep End are well and truly throwing themselves right in it. This spring the band are hitting venues all over Oz for their ‘No Time To Rest’ tour. And with 21 gig dates it’s definitely an aptly-named title. They’re bringing their true blue Aussie rock to Sydney for a weekend, stopping in for the late night slot at Frankie’s on Thursday October 17, then Spectrum on Friday October 18 and The Square on Sunday October 19.

DYSON, STRINGER & CLOHER

They say you should surround yourself with like-minded people. But Dyson, Stringer & Cloher have taken the advice one step further. Combining their immense talents as solo singer-songwriters, they’ve formed a band and are all set to get close and cosy on tour. Drawn together by a mutual admiration of each other’s work, Mia Dyson, Liz Stringer and Jen Cloher will be performing together across the country this November. They’ll be playing a mixture of songs written by each artist plus some brand new material. The supertrio will be letting their harmonies soar around The Factory Theatre on Saturday November 9.

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Deerhunter photo by Robert Semmer

Are you in a sweet, sweet band? Or reckon your friend’s band is da bomb? Get organised for The Star’s ‘Clash of the Bands’. This spring Rock Lily will host the search for Sydney’s hottest unsigned band. With a whopping $20,000 first prize this will surely be one brutal band battle. The search kicks off on Thursday September 5 with the Grand Final showdown to come in November. Hopeful bands can enter by emailing rocklily@ dfproductions.com.au.

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Industrial Strength Music Industry News with Christie Eliezer

THINGS WE HEAR

How did Isabella Manfredi celebrate as the $50,000 winner of the Vanda & Young Songwriting Competition for â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Is This How You Feel?â&#x20AC;&#x2122; by The Preatures? She spent the afternoon in rehearsals with the band. That morning she had made a t-shirt boldly declaring â&#x20AC;&#x153;Fuck Tony Abbottâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Sex Appealâ&#x20AC;? after his â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;sex appealâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; gaffe. She was photographed in the tee by the media throughout the morning of the win. Manfredi was â&#x20AC;&#x153;amused and upsetâ&#x20AC;? the media white-inked the message. Robert Conley took out the $10,000 second prize, while Thelma Plum and Jasmine Nelson got $5,000 each. * Not celebrating his #1 ratings win was Kyle Sandilands, who blubbered to listeners that his dog Astro had been run over in front of girlfriend Imogen Anthony. * The Beatles split 43 years ago and two of â&#x20AC;&#x2122;em are dead. But their music, DVD and merchandising sales made ÂŁ43.5 million (A$74.94 million) last year.

MATTHEW EVANS HEADS VILLAGE SOUNDS

Matthew Evans, former Chief Financial Officer of EMI Music Australasia, has become the CEO of promoter Jessica Ducrouâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Byron Bay-based Village Sounds Group. This includes Village Sounds Agency, Splendour in the Grass, Homebake, The Falls Festival, Secret Sounds Touring, Secret Sounds Connect, and North Byron Parklands â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the purpose-built home of Splendour and Falls. Ducrou said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Village Sounds Group has expanded exponentially over the past few years so Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m delighted to welcome Matt, with his exceptional set of skills and experience, to lead the management and growth of the group. This is a terrific time for us as we embark on a truly exciting phase for our businesses.â&#x20AC;? Evans is now based in the Byron office, and said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;To be working so closely with the live music experience is a prospect I am relishing.â&#x20AC;?

* Coolio is selling off his music catalogue rights, including the giant hit â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Gangstaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Paradiseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and 122 other songs. He hopes to make up to $225,000 to fund his new career as a chef, for a cookbook series and online show. * Shihad took to Facebook to dispute a report in a Sunday newspaper that they were flying to war-torn Cairo to record a new album. Apparently they had intended to do so a month ago before Egypt descended into crisis. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Given the recent events Shihad cancelled plans and wholeheartedly support the Egyptian people in their pursuit of a peaceful and lasting solution to the current unrest.â&#x20AC;? * Ticketekâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s presale tickets exclusively for Bruce Springsteen fans ended with the sale of concerts being delayed as the system collapsed. But fans were more enraged that scalpers managed to infiltrate the event and are advertising $227.90 tickets for $499. Some even got eight-seat blocks. * Hottest photo on social media last week:

CHISEL FORM OWN LABEL, GO UNIVERSAL

After 25 years with Warner Music, Cold Chisel are forming their own label, Cold Chisel Music, which will be distributed by Universal Music. It will only serve to release Chiselâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s back catalogue which they got back from Warner (theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve sold 6 million albums in total) and future releases.

FAT AS BUTTER: FLO RIDA â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;A PRIME DICKHEADâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

Newcastle festival Fat As Butterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s promoter Mothership Music had the last word about Flo Rida: heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;still a prime dickheadâ&#x20AC;?. The company made the call in a statement rushed out to emphasise that Fat As Butter is going ahead in October despite Mothership going into voluntary administration last Thursday. Mothership made the move as it owed almost $200,000 to the Australian Tax Office and smaller numbers to unsecured creditors, including Mothership director Brent Lean. Two days before, the

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a schoolgirl performing a sex act on a man at Eminemâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s UK concert at Slane Castle in broad daylight front of other fans. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram moved to block the posted photos while cops spoke to the girl and her family. * It was an awesome week for Sydney indie dance trio RĂźFĂźS. Atlas debuted at #1 on the ARIA charts and they had to add more shows in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane due to popular demand. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the first time an album with the title Atlas went to #1. It is the 163rd #1 by an Australian act, and the 323rd by a group. RĂźFĂźS are the 86th Australian act to go #1 since The Seekers in 1968, and the 51st Australian group. * New signings: ABC Music inked Adam Brand and singer and harpist Alana Conway; Alberts will represent Abbe Mayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s catalogue and new releases. Meantime, DMG Radio got Nova Sydney breakfast team Fitzy & Wippa to sign for a further four years after Southern Cross Media tried to poach them.

NSW Court of Appeal allowed Flo and VIP Entertainment & Concepts to escape forking out $380,400 in damages and $37,745 in legal fees to Mothership. It found that last August, the NSW District Court erred when it allowed Mothership to take the extraordinary step of serving Flo papers via Facebook because they couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t serve him personally. The Appeals Court said it couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be proven that the Facebook page was set up by him nor was it certain he accessed it.

ITUNES RADIO

The long-awaited iTunes Radio is set to launch next month in the US. It will be an ad model, with brands such as McDonaldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, Pepsi, Nissan and Procter & Gamble already signed on. Users will get an ad display every 15 minutes and a video ad every hour. Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll access it via all iTunes-compliant devices, including PCs, tablets, iPads, iPods, iPhones and Apple TV.

LIVE NATION, MIXITUP JOINT VENTURE

Promoter Live Nation Australasia and Sydney brand entertainment agency mixitup Enterprises have formed a joint venture, mixitup Australia, to create music and entertainment brand partnerships across Australia and New Zealand. Live Nation Australasia president Michael Coppel worked with mixitup back when he ran his promoter and events company Michael Coppel Presents on projects such as V Festival and tours by Daft Punk and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

NEW ERA FOR THE EDGE Just Announced

Deerhunter (USA) Tue 10 Dec

Anberlin (USA) Sat 7 Sep

For The Fallen Dreams (USA)

Sydney urban radio station The Edge 96.ONE has dumped its â&#x20AC;&#x153;Live Sexyâ&#x20AC;? tag. On the weekend it launched its new line, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Hits that move youâ&#x20AC;?. It polled listeners as to what format they wanted and was told, â&#x20AC;&#x153;a hybrid of urban, pop, dance and R&B, so thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll get,â&#x20AC;? Program Director Charlie Fox said.

Coming Soon

The Brian Jonestown Massacre (USA) Thu 19 Dec

RĂźfĂźs

Fri 13 Sep Fri 18 Oct

SOLD OUT

Tonight Alive

Thu 5 Sept: All Ages

Alexander Abreu & Havana Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Primera (CUB)

Fri 6 Sep

Supernova U18s Fest feat. Wasted Penquinz, Toneshifterz + More Sun 15 Sep

Disclosure (UK)

Regurgitator

Tue 1 Oct

Fri 4 Oct

SOLD OUT

Rap City feat. Talib Kweli (USA) Sun 6 Oct

Fri 20 Sep: All Ages

SOUNDS OF AUSTRALIA

Russell Morrisâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; psychedelic epic â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The Real Thingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; (1969), Peter Allenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;I Still Call Australia Homeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; (1980), Archie Roachâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Took The Children Awayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; (1990) and 1960s surf rockers The Atlanticsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; instrumental â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Bomboraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; (1963) were four contemporary music tracks added to the National Film and Sound Archiveâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Sounds of Australia collection. Others included radio broadcasts and recordings of a lyrebird. See its website for the full list.

LAWSUIT OF THE WEEK

US company Hewlett-Packard feels itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s getting stiffed by a lawsuit over its mobile phone app which allows men to measure the size of their penis. It launched in February with a great pun of a name, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The Chubby Checkerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. Not chortling was 1960s singer Chubby Checker, whose â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Twist Againâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; launched the twist phenomenon of the time. (Born Ernest Evans, his own stage name was a pun on â&#x20AC;&#x2122;50s rocker Fats Domino). Hewlett-Packard argues it didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t create or name the app, which has limply only sold 88 downloads.

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Daft Punkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Get Luckyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; has got over 100 million streams on Spotify since its April release. It got lucky on other platforms, too. The official YouTube video hit 111,617,013 plays at 500,000 a day. It was averaging 1.5 million plays daily at its peak.

INTERNATIONAL FILMS FOR BOOMERANG

This Octoberâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Boomerang festival in Byron Bay is screening films and shorts involving indigenous Canadians. The selection by filmmaker Gail Maurice and producer Denise Bolduc covers sci-fi, comedy, drama, documentary and animation. Festival Director Rhoda Roberts said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;I have always loved the work of Marlon Brando, but seeing how instrumental he had been challenging the Academy Awards with Sacheen Littlefeather in Reel Injun made me see another layer to this complex man and his craft and indeed that of Clint Eastwood.â&#x20AC;?

MUSIC INDUSTRY FORUM

The second of the Newcastle Music Industry Forum series by MusicNSW and the University of Newcastle Conservatorium of Music concentrates on the recording process and how to get heard. The free event is at the Conservatorium at 6.30pm on Thursday September 26. Speakers are Jason Whalley of Frenzal Rhomb, triple jâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Dave Ruby Howe, publicist Paula Jones, Inertia A&R and Australian Music Manager Mark Dodds and producer and Attic Studios co-owner Lachlan Mitchell. RSVP to creativearts@newcastle. edu.au.

Lifelines Engaged: One Directionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Zayn Malik proposed to girlfriend Perrie Edwards during the premiere of the bandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new movie in London. Although rocked by scandal heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d cheated on her with an Aussie waitress in London in January, he says he took four flights in 48 hours to spend time with Perrie. Split: Singer Samantha Jade and Swedish music producer Christian Nilsson (Westlife, Backstreet Boys, Glee). They met when she was recording in Sweden, then became a live-in couple in LA and Sydney. Injured: The Calling singer Alex Band was kidnapped, beaten and left by train tracks after a gig in Michigan. He was walking to the local supermarket when a van pulled up alongside and he was dragged inside. Recovering: Beady Eye guitarist Gem Archer is set to â&#x20AC;&#x153;make a full recovery over the next few weeksâ&#x20AC;? after his accident, the band said on their website. In Court: Kanye West wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t face charges over an attack on a photographer last month at LA airport. A video showed the man asking him questions and West ignoring him. He loses his cool, a row begins, he seizes the camera and a scuffle breaks out during which the photographer falls to the ground. After being told to stop by an onlooker, he put up his hands and walks away. Suing: Lester Chambers, 73, of The Chambers Bros, takes $5 million action against Dinalynn Andrews-Potter, 43, who pushed him against the bandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s amplifiers during a show. The verdict of black shooting victim Trayvon Martin had come in, and all around the world, rock musicians were expressing their anger or their sadness. Chambers dedicated the peace anthem â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;People Get Readyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; to the victim and asked the audience to pray for him, when attacked. Died: US promoter Sid Bernstein, 95, who brought The Beatles to Shea Stadium in 1965, the first rock act at the venue. He also arranged The Rolling Stonesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; first five US gigs, along with shows for Judy Garland, Ray Charles, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra and Jimi Hendrix. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The first dozen groups of the British Invasion were my imports,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;But look, it was no stroke of genius. I was just doing my homework at the time.â&#x20AC;?

thebrag.com

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YELLOWCARD

decade ago, Yellowcard were just a bunch of young punks, newly relocated to California and hoping to follow in the footsteps of their favourite bands, Lagwagon and NOFX. Then Ocean Avenue came along, and all of that changed. The success of the young band’s fourth album elevated them to headliner status – although it wasn’t an overnight success. “It was a slow burn,” violinist and co-founder Sean Mackin says, “and it wasn’t until we did the Warped Tour the following year when the single ‘Ocean Avenue’ took off and became its own thing.” That early success, Mackin says, really felt like it came out of nowhere. “To have a song become so big that we were able to headline the Warped Tour, that was unbelievable to us. When I look back to the beginning of this journey, we had no idea that it would end up being like this.” This year marks the tenth anniversary of Ocean Avenue, and to mark the occasion Yellowcard decided to revisit the album and re-record the whole thing acoustically. Now, they’re hitting the road for a series of shows, playing Ocean Avenue Acoustic in full. When I ask Mackin why they decided to do this, he tells me they wanted to produce something truly unique to thank fans for sticking by them. “I think for us, the ten-year mark felt like a really big deal, especially for a band in our genre,” he says. “We wanted to do something special for our fans. We thought that we could do a tour, go out and play our songs and everyone could sing along and have a good time, but we wanted to do something more than that.” “We’ve done Yellowcard acoustic tours and shows in the past, and we get tonnes of requests to do acoustic songs,” Mackin continues. “Two years ago, we did an acoustic release of our album When You’re Through Thinking, Say Yes. [This time] we’ve done a 14 :: BRAG :: 527 :: 26:08:13

BACK TO BASICS BY ALASDAIR DUNCAN

full new acoustic recording of Ocean Avenue, and we’re bringing it on the road and playing it top to bottom. We have a lot of old Yellowcard fans coming to shows and a lot of new Yellowcard fans coming to shows. We wanted to just put together a special moment to thank our fans for being there for us, but also to bring everyone together and have a really awesome night.” When it came to the process of revisiting a well-loved album and re-recording its songs in an unplugged format, the members of Yellowcard had to give significant thought about how to approach the arrangements. They decided, for the most part, to stick closely to the original fast-paced template of the songs, while changing a few things here and there as they saw fit. “We’ve been living with and touring these songs for a decade,” says Mackin, “so there are parts of them that have changed and evolved, vocals and other little things like that. We wanted to keep the songs fresh. The other third of the record, we totally re-imagined it and played the songs with a different aesthetic. We wanted to put something out that would be a studio-quality version of these recordings. We spent about two months in the studio to make sure we would have a really nice-sounding release for this anniversary.” A decade is a long time, and I ask Mackin if he and the rest of the band felt strange

going back to exhume a collection of songs they wrote as much younger men. Given the chance to reflect, though, he says he wouldn’t have done anything differently. “When I look back at Ocean Avenue, I think that it was truly a gift, and I wouldn’t change any moment of it. There’s a song on the album called ‘Believe’, where we commemorate the heroes that gave their lives to protect people on 9/11. That song has a lot of meaning to us, it’s still one of my favourites and its meaning touches people so far beyond what we imagined at the time. It has its own special place in our discography. We have our own special relationship with these songs, and it’s great to hear them come to life again in acoustic form.” The violin is not the most obvious instrument to play in a punk band, and Mackin himself is grateful that he has been able to do it for so many years. He started playing violin at the age of five at his mother’s insistence, but it wasn’t until much later that he began to love and appreciate the instrument. “I grew up in Florida, and everything there is more about surfing and the beach and basketball and football and tennis,” he says. “It’s hard to be a young person there playing the violin when all your friends are doing all these other fun things outside and making fun of you. I took lessons, but at the time I didn’t want to play because I didn’t want to be different – I just wanted to play basketball with my friends. My mom would hammer me about it and tell me

“WE WANTED TO JUST PUT TOGETHER A SPECIAL MOMENT TO THANK OUR FANS FOR BEING THERE FOR US”.

how it was a gift and how I’d thank her one day, and she was absolutely right.” When Mackin transferred to an arts-focused high school, violin began to make more sense. “I played in orchestras through high school and I did lessons, and I realised I was never going to be a prodigy but I still worked hard at it. That was a really cool period in my life – I started writing songs, then I met some friends who shared similar taste in music, so we formed a band, and now we’re touring the world and putting out records and our lives are really amazing.” Though Mackin’s classical days are behind him, he still draws on the ideas he learned about structure, melody and arrangement. “There are elements that people were using in classical music hundreds of years ago that Yellowcard and other bands are using today,” he says. “There’s really nothing new in music. I just want to write songs that we can be proud of; songs that our fans will want to play to their friends.” The Ocean Avenue Acoustic tour will bring Yellowcard to Australia, and I ask Mackin if the band has any final words for fans in this part of the world. “It’s a long trip to Australia and it hasn’t always been easy for us to get down there, but on our last couple of trips we’ve had more and more fans each time come along to support us and love us. We can see that and we appreciate that, and we’ll make every effort to keep coming back for years to come. We’d really like to thank all our fans there from the bottom of our hearts, and we can’t wait to come back down and hang out.” What: Ocean Avenue Acoustic out now through Hopeless Records/UNFD With: Toy Boats Where: Enmore Theatre (all ages) When: Saturday October 26 thebrag.com

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Anberlin Vitality By Rick Wickman

he upcoming Australian tour by Florida melodic rock titans Anberlin coincides with the group’s ten-year anniversary. It’s a decade that has seen a wealth of albums and an ever-increasing following of fans. Speaking during a respite in Nashville, Tennessee – “We’ve got another couple of days off before we start doing some rehearsals for Australia” – lead singer Stephen Christian takes a look back at the band’s success and casts his gaze toward the future.

We Came As Romans Veni, Vidi, Vici By Augustus Welby

t’s shortly after the release of We Came As Romans’ third album, Tracing Back Roots, and lead vocalist David Stephens says he’s pleased with the initial critical and commercial response. “From what I’ve read it seems like, scrolling down the list, 95 per cent of people are really loving it and records are flying off the shelves and people are really clinging to it. And then there’s about five per cent of people who really want to kill us,” he laughs. The significant increase in accessible melodic content on this record distinguishes it from the metalcore assault of the Michigan six-piece’s earlier work. Upon release, Stephens admits, he was nervous about how fans would react to the wide employment of clean vocals. “It was really, really scary releasing these tracks where I’m singing, and two songs that are all singing. We were like, ‘Wow, is the world just going to turn their backs on us after this?’” However, the predominantly positive feedback indicates the stylistic departure has paid off. Stephens attests that during recording the band weren’t particularly hesitant about making the adjustment to their sound. “We did 14 songs in six weeks; we only needed 11 and it was supposed to take eight weeks. It just came together really nicely, and John [Feldmann] is a great producer and it did feel right.” Producer Feldmann’s inclination towards the poppier end of the punk spectrum (his production credits include The Used, Hilary Duff and his own band Goldfinger) evidently enhanced the incorporation of additional sheen. The vocals of keyboard player Kyle Pavone, previously the band’s sole clean vocalist, feature more predominately on the album than ever. Stephens says Feldmann was instrumental in developing the dual clean vocal format. “John really pushed the idea of both Kyle and I singing. He thought that was a really cool thing we could use, something that could make us a little

different. He really helped me find my own singing style too, which I never really had before. I could hit the notes and everything else but he really helped me find a character for my voice.” Throughout their career We Came As Romans have projected an essentially positive ethos, made most apparent by their empathetic lyrics. Stephens explains that a newfound writing method furthered the scope of the lyricism on this album. “We have a lot of fans who really cling to our lyrics so they’re a really important thing to write. Normally Josh [Moore, lead guitar] writes all the lyrics and that’s it. Josh still wrote almost all of the lyrics, but he was cool. Me, John, Kyle and Josh would go to Starbucks together and we’d just sit there, talk about ideas, things we could write about. It was cool to have multiple minds at work and I think because of that the lyrics on this record are better than any of our [previous] lyrics.”

“I can’t rationalise it,” Christian says of Anberlin’s anniversary, “because I never expected it to make it this far. Never in a million years would I have thought that we’d have the opportunities that we’ve had or been able to travel to where we’ve travelled, or meet the people that we’ve met along the way. It’s all incredible, it’s all beyond my wildest expectations. For all of us, ten years is a huge milestone. It’s a time to pause and reflect, but for Anberlin, it will be a short pause. We don’t feel like all the best years are behind us, we think we have a couple more to come. We’re not going to do anything special, like a ten-year show where we play our first record or anything like that. For now, we’re just going to keep going. That’s our game plan.” Last year saw the release of Vital, which many fans regard as Anberlin’s finest album yet. With such a prolific track record, we shouldn’t expect to wait that long for a follow-up. “We’re even talking about it now, when do we start our next record? When we feel like we have enough songs, when we have the right songs, we start recording. If we don’t have the right songs, we go through the process of evaluating what we have and what we should be doing. Some of the guys have already started writing music here and there. I haven’t even got my head around it because Vital took a lot out of us. It was one of those albums that were emotionally 110 per cent. We’ll see where we are in a few months and reconvene as a group.”

There are a few surprises in store for Australian fans when the band arrives next month, showcasing the vivid Anberlin live philosophy. “We’ve always had the mantra that we put on the show we want to see. Some people pay money to go see a show, then the band only plays the new record. And it’s like, ‘I fell in love with you several records back and I’ve been following you this whole time, so I wanna hear all of it.’ We play stuff that’s old, stuff that’s new. The majority of the stuff we play is off the previous five records, then we’ll play a little bit off this record. Then we like to play songs that a listener may have never heard before – whether that’s a cover song, a B-side of ours … just something different to make it exciting, so you feel like you’re not aware of what’s going to happen next.” In a refl ective stage of his career, Christian believes he still has plenty left to give – but there was a time he felt differently. “I would assume that all musicians would lie to you and say they haven’t plateaued. I remember reading Bob Dylan’s Chronicles where in the book he was saying he hit 40 and woke up and realised that all his best songs were behind him. There actually was a point in my life where I thought I might have plateaued and hit the Bob Dylan ceiling … but then Vital came around and everything became illuminated and I felt alive again, I fell in love with music again. Everything transpired, then Vital felt like some of my best work. So have I plateaued? That’s for the fans to decide, to see if our next album is better than Vital.” With: The Maine, William Beckett, Masketta Fall Where: The Hi-Fi (all ages) When: Saturday September 7

Optimal on-stage vocal execution could provide a greater challenge for Stephens now, given he has to juggle singing and screaming. In order to eclipse any hurdles generated by the new album material, he’ll utilise a break from touring prior to the band’s Australian visit and put himself into a vocal training regime. “I plan on doing some vocal lessons, any way to become better at my instrument. I want to sing and scream for a couple of hours a day, get stronger and better at it. Like a drummer or a guitarist or anybody, you’ve got to practise your instrument.” With: The Offspring, Parkway Drive, Simple Plan, New Found Glory, Tonight Alive and more What: Vans Warped Tour Where: Barangaroo, Sydney When: Sunday December 1 And: Tracing Back Roots out now through Equal Vision/UNFD

Mac DeMarco Making His Mac By Augustus Welby lodgings in New York, DeMarco casts his mind back to the home recording sessions that birthed the record. “At the time I had a little cramped apartment in Montreal. I had a handful of mics, a tape machine and some drums, and a guitar and a bass. It was a real simple set-up; only eight tracks and, yeah, it worked out alright,” he says coyly.

eleased in the northern hemisphere late last year (and subsequently showing up on a number of the year’s ‘best of’ lists) the second album from Canada’s Mac DeMarco – simply entitled 2 – has finally seen its official release in Australia. On the phone from his current 16 :: BRAG :: 527 :: 26:08:13

Indulging his multi-instrumentalist propensity, DeMarco recorded the album without the assistance of his well-established live band. He explains why he values complete sovereignty in the studio. “I enjoy it and it makes things a lot easier for me. I don’t like having to wait around on people. If I’m doing

The album doesn’t correspond directly with much else in indie rock at present, encompassing intricate guitar playing, slowburning grooves and vocal musings that range from devout paeans praising cigarettes to sentimental ballads for DeMarco’s girlfriend. His songwriting is fairly distinct from the bands commonly invoked as similar (Real Estate and Ariel Pink, for instance), but he maintains he wasn’t conscious of deliberately diverging from contemporary trends. “I didn’t think about it so much. I don’t really pay attention to new music at all, unless [it’s by] friends of mine. I got really into The Band and Steely Dan and a lot of early ’70s production and songwriting. I think that’s what I was trying to rip off, and it just turns out that maybe not too many [artists] are trying to make a really dry ’70s-style album right now.” Australian audiences can become further acquainted with DeMarco’s singular oeuvre when he comes to the country in December. DeMarco and his three onstage companions have upheld a steady intercontinental touring

schedule since before the record’s US release last October, and he promises they’ve been making the most of the revelry that regularly beckons. “What makes it worth it is if you can have fun at all the shows. When you feel like your whole body’s falling apart because you’ve been drinking a 12-pack of beer every night for two months, you’re like, ‘OK – maybe this week I’m going to be a little more mellow,’ and then after that week you go right back into party zone.” Despite his commitment to good times, DeMarco admits life on the road isn’t always about the big nights and even bigger hangovers. “I think I’ve gotten a lot more mature grasp on the idea of touring. It’s not all about partying; also I’m trying to do some kind of art form. It gets a little bit trying when after the show the kids are like, ‘Yo man, let’s drink 50 beers!’ It’s kind of like, ‘Oh, I did this last night and the night before and the night before – but OK, sure.’” What: 2 out now through Spunk Where: The Standard, Sydney (Co-headliner Twerps) / Meredith Music Festival, Victoria When: Thursday December 12 / Friday December 13 – Sunday December 15 thebrag.com

Mac DeMarco photo by Lauralynn Petrick

2 has a dry and organic sound – its idiosyncratic production is a consequence of DeMarco’s admitted preference for relatively older, more conventional studio equipment. “I like working with tape and I like having a mixer where I can actually feel the knobs. Eight tracks is, I feel, a good amount. When I’m on a computer, all of a sudden the graphic EQs look like huge crazy mountainscapes that sound super weird and I have 50 tracks and I’m like, ‘What the hell am I doing?’” he laughs.

it wrong myself, then I’ll just fix it. It’s like a zen, weird experience for me … Plus, when you put down a fat bass track, and you played it, you’re like, ‘Oh yeah baby!’”

Amanda Palmer Ask Me By Rohan Williams

iso

arlier this year, Amanda Palmer delivered the performance that her entire career had been building towards. No, it wasn’t her attack on The Daily Mail (but we’ll get to that), and it certainly wasn’t her poem for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (but we’ll get to that, too) – it was her TED talk. Palmer’s presentation for the TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) Conference spanned her life’s work, from her time spent busking as a living statue and sleeping on fans’ couches to her game-changing, record-breaking Kickstarter project for her acclaimed Theatre Is Evil LP. Between TED.com and YouTube, the erstwhile Dresden Doll’s February speech, ‘The Art Of Asking’, has already attracted over four million views and served as a watershed moment in the crowdsourcing debate. “The big thing that inspired the TED talk,” Palmer says, “was a need to really deeply explain myself after feeling that I’d been heavily misunderstood when I came under fire for crowdsourcing things. In my community, that’s such a natural way of doing stuff, and I was so caught off guard when I was criticised for it. “I really felt like I was standing up, not just for me, but for all the artists I know who do a lot of crowdsourcing and exchange a lot, creatively, with their fans and their friends. The culture is shifting, especially in America right now, and a lot of artists are coming under fire for how they do things. I felt like it was an important talk to give, to remind people that it really is the artist’s prerogative how they want to interact and exchange with their fans and their friends.”

Amanda Palmer photo by Shervin Lainez

Followers of Palmer will be aware that when she talks about “coming under fire,” she’s referring to the criticism she received when she attempted to crowdsource “professional-ish horns and strings” musicians to play with her Grand Theft Orchestra last year in return for beers, high fives and free merch. Palmer had raised $1.2 million from 24,883 backers for Theatre Is Evil, but claimed she could not afford the $35,000 to pay these additional musicians. Legendary producer Steve Albini called Palmer an “idiot” for making the request (he later apologised for using the word, but stood by his sentiment that it was “just plain rude” for Palmer to ask fans to play in her backing band for free). Palmer eventually caved to public pressure and agreed to pay the volunteers; I ask her why she relented and if she regrets not standing her ground. “It was the easiest way to get back to work,” she counters. “That’s the easiest answer. It wasn’t like I reversed my principles. My principles stayed steady. But with so many people screaming, and with a job to do – this was literally happening during the first few weeks of our tour, while we were driving from show to show and working with these musicians every night – I didn’t really feel like it was the correct time for a political battle. It was time to play music for people. “What I really did need to do was just shut everybody up and change the agenda back to the tour and away from being at the centre thebrag.com

nic

“Human beings should feel empathy towards everybody ... It doesn’t work if it’s selective.” of yet another internet shitstorm. That was the most expedient way of doing it. But it did really suck, because it made the entire tour incredibly awkward with all of these musicians who had just happily volunteered to come up onstage with us and all of a sudden felt like they were under some sort of cultural fire. I felt badly for them that they got stuck in the middle of this stupid situation.” The crowdsourcing debate wasn’t the only controversy Palmer found herself embroiled in over the past 12 months. She also wrote ‘A Poem For Dzhokhar’, a stream-of-consciousness work that appeared to take a sympathetic view of alleged Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. “My views about this are probably continually controversial,” she shrugs, “but I think human beings should feel empathy towards everybody. When I say ‘everybody’, I mean absolutely everybody. It doesn’t work if it’s selective. That means young, old, violent, non-violent, black, white, you name it. If we’re selectively empathetic, we’re just not doing it right.” More recently, Palmer attracted positive press for her skewering of The Daily Mail. The British tabloid wrote a bizarre review of Palmer’s Glastonbury performance that made no mention of her music, focusing instead on a minor “wardrobe malfunction”; in response, Palmer threw off her kimono at her next show and performed a new song, ‘Dear Daily Mail’, entirely nude. “When I saw that Daily Mail article,” she says, “my first reaction was to laugh. I really thought it was so fucking funny that The Daily Mail thought I would be embarrassed someone could see a quarter centimetre of my nipple. Someone at The Daily Mail obviously didn’t Google my name. I just thought that was so funny, but also so telling about how culture is built, because they’re functioning on a planet where a female artist is fundamentally supposed to be embarrassed by something like that. “As a female performance artist, nudity is definitely a powerful tool... especially if you use it with humour. That can be a really powerful statement because often, female performance art and nudity gets stuck in a box of ultra serious, highly academic feminist bullshit. Sometimes it’s just really funny to rip your clothes off and do something hilarious.” What: Amanda Palmer & The Grand Theft Orchestra Where: Enmore Theatre (all ages) When: Saturday September 14 And: The Sydney Fringe presents Amanda Palmer In Conversation on Friday September 13 at Venue 505

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The Growl

What Would Kevin Do? By Augustus Welby

am Avery, frontman of Perth’s The Growl, should surely be exhausted. In the last 12 months, The Growl have toured Australia and the US in support of close comrades Tame Impala, as well as recording and releasing their debut album, What Would Christ Do?? With that record in the can, Avery took up the role of bass player in Tame Impala – replacing Nick Allbrook, with whom Avery shares titular sovereignty of the band Allbrook/Avery. “I’m pretty tired,” Avery admits, speaking from the Tame Impala tour bus near the end of their European tour. “I haven’t noticed it much before in other hectic touring times but the other day I was like, ‘Fuck, I’m tired.’” However, a busy year is hardly going to slow him down. Ahead of The Growl’s Australian headline tour in September, Avery reports there’s plenty more on the horizon. “I’m going to come straight back for rehearsals with The Growl for this tour, then after that tour I’m doing the new Growl album. I’m going to try and do it all in two-and-ahalf, three weeks; and then I’m going back to the States with Tame Impala.” While it may appear new to some, The Growl is not exactly a recent incarnation. The project – which sounds something like The Birthday Party meets Nine Inch Nails via Tom Waits’ Bone Machine – is Avery’s primary avenue of expression, and he makes very specifi c demands of his band

members. “I’m the bossiest, most control freak-ish person. I come to rehearsals with the whole song pretty much recorded and show it to everyone and say, ‘This is what you have to do.’ I feel really lucky that those guys want to follow me with some of the stupid ideas that I have.” Avery reveals the forthcoming record will depart from the shrieking industrial intrigue that dominates the first album to include “a lot more ballads and chorus-y songs.” The new material, he says, is “a lot more chilled. It’s not as garage psycho-explosion rock. It’s probably more orchestral than anything else. I started a new song on the weekend and it’s got timpanis and a six-piece string part and grand piano and horns.” What Would Christ Do?? has commanded plenty of attention for The Growl, but Avery is determined not to let public expectations interfere with his creative ambitions. “At the beginning of this writing process there were all of these songs coming out of me and some of them were a bit more pop-based, and I was like, ‘This is so weird, I’ve never written music like this before.’ Then I spent two weeks with a good friend of mine in LA and he was like, ‘Just write them and record them.’ Even Kevin [Parker] and Nick [Allbrook], they were both like, ‘They’re going to sound like you anyway – whether you’re recording ‘Someday’ by The Strokes or a classical thing it will always sound like you regardless.’”

Music made purely to satisfy external pressures is likely to prompt both personal and public dissatisfaction, and Avery explains how this understanding has emboldened his ideas for the next record. “I’ve thrown all those paranoias out the window recently

and the music that I’ve started recording for the new album is quite different. I think all you can ever do is record what sounds good to you at the time. If your tastes change and your expression evolves then follow it, don’t try to fi ght it.”

With: Peter Bibby & His Bottles of Confidence, Melodie Nelson Where: Goodgod Small Club When: Wednesday September 4 And: What Would Christ Do?? out now through Waterfront Records

All Time Low Home And Away By Joshua Kloke comfortable festivals to be a part of. They do a great job of taking care of all the bands, especially those who aren’t from Australia and who’ve travelled a long way to be there. It can be a bit rattling when everyone travels together, all the bands. But there ends up being a great sense of camaraderie between everyone, despite the long distances we have to travel. I’ve always had a really good time.” Each successive occasion All Time Low visit a country, it seems they play bigger venues. Consider their most recent performance in London, at which the band opened for Green Day at the massive 60,000-capacity Emirates Stadium. Gaskarth says they’re starting to adapt to such massive venues. “It’s less intimidation and more excitement. We’ve never had an experience where we’ve been booed off stage, or where we’ve been too worried to go tour a new place. We really just get excited when we have the opportunity to go to a new place; for us that means making new fans.”

hen Alex Gaskarth, vocalist and rhythm guitarist for All Time Low, answers the phone and tells me where he’s doing this interview, I’m a little surprised. “I’m at home in Maryland,” says the 25-year-old. Given the pop punkers’ heavy touring schedule, I wasn’t expecting to catch Gaskarth anywhere near home. By the end of September, All Time Low will 18 :: BRAG :: 527 :: 26:08:13

have performed in nine countries over three months, including Brazil, China and Australia, and across five different continents. Sounding relaxed and refreshed, Gaskarth is completely upfront about how important this intense globetrotting is to the band. “To be completely honest, I think that’s what keeps this band going. It’s the primary way [of] spreading the word. It’s what we do, and we do it as best we can.”

Ultimately, for Gaskarth and All Time Low, who’ve been together since 2003 but first emerged in 2005 with their debut full-length The Party Scene, touring has become a necessity for survival. “We haven’t had a tonne of support from mainstream radio, so the best way we can go about things with this band is by travelling to these places and playing these concerts and making sure people leave having had a good time.”

The band’s jet-setting pace has become a way of life for its four members. Not many groups are able to count three Australian tours in their first ten years of existence. The members of All Time Low, who’ve performed at Soundwave twice, consider it one of the better festivals they’ve played. “I give Australia a lot of props for that festival,” Gaskarth says. “It’s one of the best run and most

If anything, fi nding a comfort zone within a lifestyle that requires constant change has remained the easiest part of the job. On camera and onstage, the band members allude to a closeness in friendship that can often become strained over long periods of travelling. Yet as Gaskarth tells it, the band wouldn’t be able to see the world if it weren’t for that very closeness. “We grew up together; we met in high school. Now, more than ever, we’re having more fun on the road because it feels like family. It’s very easy to tolerate people when they’re as close to you as they are. It’s important to have that dynamic.” Where: UNSW Roundhouse (all ages) When: Friday August 30 thebrag.com

The Paper Kites Flights Of Fancy By Krissi Weiss

he indie folk scene in Australia, while rich in diversity and filled with an overwhelming breadth of talent, seems to be overflowing to the point of being unsustainable. We all know the awesome bands that have risen to the top like cream for a whirlwind ride and then bubbled away by the next festival season, never to be heard of again, but Melbourne five-piece The Paper Kites have met this problem head on. They’ve gone viral on the internet (OK, so ‘viral’ gets tossed around a lot but nearly 6.5 million YouTube views indicates that’s no overstatement) and introduced themselves to Australia and the world simultaneously. After signing with Wonderlick Recording and Sony Music in a joint venture domestically, and with Nettwerk in North America, The Paper Kites are launching their debut album, States, into the global market. But as frontman Sam Bentley admits, the recording process was certainly not a walk in the park. Yeah, people got mad – but they still love each other. “It actually ended up being a pretty difficult record to make, I think. It was the first time we didn’t all agree on the styles. It was really unusual for us because we’re always on the same page so, um, yeah…” Bentley trails off, wanting to talk openly about the creative process but also quite clearly not wishing a few arguments to be misconstrued as evidence of some ongoing rift within the band. “There were a lot of heated discussions about the songs that ended up on there,” he decides. “Even now with the finished product, there are still songs that some [of the band] are not that stoked with being on there and other people would be upset [about] if they weren’t on there. It’s not that it’s a divided album, but I think what happened with this record was that – especially when you’re working with five opinionated people – everyone was in their own musical bubble and had different opinions on what they saw as great music. When you bring an idea into that that doesn’t sit well with their idea then it’s always going to be a recipe for a heated discussion.”

“It’s not that it’s a divided album, but ... everyone was in their own musical bubble and had different opinions on what they saw as great music.” While Bentley agrees that the indie folk scene in Australia is bursting at the seams, he believes The Paper Kites’ approach to songwriting sets them apart. “There are definitely a lot of people in the scene and that’s a problem,” he says. “It’s not that we’ve intentionally tried to avoid that but I do think that the industry, particularly in Australia, is very stuck in the idea of what’s hot and what’s not. We try to write stuff that’s not really going to fit into those categories. I think there’s always going to be a place for the singer-songwriters doing their thing, though. And if it’s stuff that people connect with then there’s always going to be a place for you, and I guess that’s what’s been the common factor for our music – people really get something out of it.”

“He worked with us on fi ve or six songs,” says Bentley. “He brought in a lot of wacky ideas and a lot of texture to the songs that we wouldn’t have thought of. He was a really great collaborator but again, that was also yet another reason why some people in the band weren’t comfortable. I think it pushed our soundscapes into a territory we have never been before so it has resulted in a much more complex album. I think no matter what, when it’s your debut album it’s really important that you get it right. We’ve never tried to be the band that was the hottest thing – we’re just putting out the stuff that we’re writing and it’s a progression of the sound. People are either going to embrace the sound and really enjoy it, or they’re going to say, ‘That’s not the Paper Kites that we know and love,’ and they’re going to hate it. That’s always the risk.” What: States is out Friday August 30 through Wonderlick/Sony Music Australia With: Georgia Fair, Robbie Miller When: Friday August 30 / Saturday August 31 Where: The Small Ballroom, Newcastle (18+) / Metro Theatre, Sydney (all ages)

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Produced by the experienced Wayne Connolly, States has taken the group into a new territory with regard to sonic diversity. Just how these sounds will come to life on the upcoming tour is another concern for Bentley. “It’s going to be interesting because we’re dealing with sounds we never have before. It’s always a task to translate it live and we’re really going to be working on that. It’s a really exciting process as well. We want the live shows to be true to the sound of the album but I have no idea how we’re going to do that.” They might be on the verge of an international breakthrough but the connection the band has managed to establish with their audience has never been driven by market concerns or strategy. Slowly, The Paper Kites are becoming aware of what works and what doesn’t, but it needn’t dictate how they create their music. With every debut album comes the concern over broadening one’s audience while remaining familiar to those who’ve been there every step of the way. Enter young Melbourne composer Tim Coghill. thebrag.com

Tickets available through: BRAND NEW ALBUM “STEAL THE LIGHT” OUT NOW BRAG :: 527 :: 26:08:13 :: 19

arts frontline

free stuff email: freestuff@thebrag.com

arts news...what's goin' on around town...with James Dunlop, Mina Kitsos and Nick Timms

five minutes WITH Charles Dennington, Composite of Faces II II,, 2013

CHARLES DENNINGTON

sense of simultaneous presence and absence. Alongside his portraits, Dennington will also exhibit unconventional sculptures that will take form as wall silhouettes. We caught five with the artist ahead of opening night. Tell us about your background in photography. I was first drawn to photography during high school, taking pictures of fun things around me and printing them in the darkroom. The attraction I have to the medium comes from photography’s ability to take notes on discoveries made. Re-presenting these new ideas with an often surprisingly otherworldly visual depth and new meaning attributed to what is being photographed. I’m completely obsessed with early photography’s inclination towards portraiture and the unaffected nature of this. German photographer Erna LendvaiDircksen with her rural portraits is a good example. More recent inspirations have been Rineke Dijkstra and Bill Brandt.

merging photographer Charles Dennington will showcase his latest body of work Double, Time. Climb at Galerie Pompom from August 27 through September 22. In this series, the artist presents portraitbased photographs where subject’s faces are partially patterned in shadows to evoke a

Describe your photographic style to someone who has never seen your work before. I use photography to take notes on sculptural form, light and depth – people doing activities, plants and surfaces. For Double, Time. Climb there are elements of this. I am also looking at portraits heavily masked in a pattern of light and shade to describe a

HAPPY AS LARRY

Having spent the best part of the past two years touring throughout Europe and America, Shaun Parker is finally bringing Happy as Larry back to Australian shores. Fusing gritty realism with nuanced performances, Happy As Larry explores the human condition and the elusive nature of happiness. Through the use of an enneagram, a psychological system that profiles personality types, Parker has developed incredibly complex characters who are examined and evaluated by us, the audience, throughout the play’s entirety. Happy As Larry is presenting at Seymour Centre from September 10-14. Tickets are $35 with concession tickets available for $20. Visit seymourcentre.com for more information.

OCTOBER IS BALLET

The Russian National Ballet Theatre is bringing Swan Lake and The Nutcracker to our shores. The Theatre is touring the enchanting classics across 20 Australian cities and you can steal a glimpse of the pirouetting beauties at The Concourse Theatre in Chatswood on Saturday October 5 and the Enmore Theatre between October 17-19. But wait, there’s more! The Australian Ballet is spoiling us by presenting a doublebilled La Slyphide and Paquita at the Sydney Opera House from Monday October 7 for 20 performances. Come on guys, seriously. What more could you want? Head to russiannationalballettheatre.com. au and sydneyoperahouse.com for more information.

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Why portraiture? The elemental relationship between directing the picture, taking the picture and then being surprised by the resulting image is a process that will never get old for me. I just find portraiture deeply satisfying. Doing someone or something justice adds some kind of new integrity to their life and place in time.

Sitthiphon Disamoe in The Rocket

Exciting projects ahead? I am working on a book of portraits to be published next year. What: Double, Time. Climb by Charles Dennington Where: Galerie Pompom When: August 27 – September 22 More: charlesdennington.com / galeriepompom.com

CARRIAGEWORKS TO DOUBLE IN SIZE

Contemporary multi-media arts institution Carriageworks is set to double in size this month. The change recognises the public’s positive response to the venue’s programs, which have attracted audiences that have doubled in size between 2011 and 2012 and then again in 2013. “This new space is an exciting opportunity for Carriageworks to continue to respond to the appetite that our audiences have for immersive high quality artistic experiences,” said Carriageworks director Lisa Havilah. The expansion will accommodate for new international projects and larger local programs, the first being the inaugural Sydney Contemporary art fair this September. Keep an eye on carriageworks. com.au for updates.

LUCKY FILM FESTIVAL

Lucky Film Festival is opening its doors to filmmakers around the country. Festival Co-director Kai Raisbeck explains: “The Festival is open to everyone plus all genres of filmmaking including documentary, narrative, music video, animation and experimental film.” Now in its third year, Lucky Film Festival will showcase the crème de la crop of local cinematic Midases, raising funds for not-forprofit artistic launch pad The Arts Platform. Industry professionals will handpick ten entries to be screened at The Arts Platform in Leichhardt on Saturday October 12, with the winner announced on the night. Visit luckyfilmfestival.com for more details.

SEPTEMBER IN ALASKA

Rob Schneider

Where in Sydney can you find some of the best-known local and international comedians performing under one roof? Stumped? Well the answer is in fact the Sydney Opera House, and that’s no joke. From October 16-20, the Opera House will be hosting the annual global comedy festival Just for Laughs. Comedians Rove McManus, Kathy Griffin, Rob Schneider, Tommy Tiernan, and Mark Watson will all represent. And if you’re in the mood for some improv, the festival will also showcase Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood who are the stars of Whose Line is it Anyway? Want more? Peter Helliar and special guest Greg Behrendt will be at the helm of Date Night: The Relationship Show, where a group of still-to-be-announced comedians will explore some of life’s more awkward romantic situations. Tickets on sale Monday August 26. More info at sydneyoperahouse.com

Elaborate on Double, Time. Climb themes. [It’s about] the relationship between interior exterior spaces, the nature of surface when attempting to recreate a form sculpturally. There are also sculptural forms in this show so I am also looking at the simple idea of changing the properties of a material to become something else into an artwork. Transmutation!

The Rocket is Kim Mordaunt’s debut feature set to hit the big-screen this Thursday August 29. The film’s 10-yearold protagonist Ahlo, played by former street kid Sitthiphon Disamoe, and his family are forced to flee their home after he’s continuously blamed for a string of disasters. Ahlo leads his family through Laos in a bid to find a new home, meeting Kia (Loungnam Kaosainam) and her eccentric uncle Purple (Thep Phongam) along the way. The Rocket tells a heartwarming story of determination, and luckily for you, we’ve got 10 in-season double passes to give away. Just email freestuff@ thebrag.com and tell us the name of Mordaunt’s first documentary.

details.

La Slyphide

JUST FOR LAUGHS

dialogue between exterior surface and interior space.

THE ROCKET! TIX! WIN!

DEATH AT AMBUSH

aMBUSH Gallery will explore death, violence, error, and constraint in its exhibition of Venezuelan artists Sergio Hernandez, Eduardo Kairuz and Hermann Mejia. In Transition will delve into these themes with sculpture, video installation, and painting. The artists are all interested with the space between abstraction and figuration, and how experimenting with this space can bring about uncomfortable and irresistible artistic feelings. Transition launches on Thursday August 29 and runs until September 1. And it’s free. Go! Now! Visit ambushgallery.com for all the

Artist run initiative ALASKA Projects is gearing up for a mammoth September. To kick things off on Sunday September 1, Lachlan Hughes’ time without light will give you the chance to appreciate to Renaissance composer Carlo Gesualdo’s tortured masterpiece Tenebrae Responsories For Holy Saturday. Between September 4-8, the experimental performance work of artist Alexander James will showcase some of the collaborative outcomes of his research into weather history. Next up, Daniel Mudie’s will perform Gender Is A Drag on Friday September 13 in celebration of his first public performance some 20 years ago in 1993. ALASKA rounds things up for the month by representing at the inaugural Sydney Contemporary. For further program details visit alaskaprojects.com

Djulibing Yukuwa, Feather String Yam Vine (detail), 2013

STRING THEORY

You’ve got until Sunday October 27 to catch MCA’s latest, string theory: focus on contemporary Australian art. The exhibition brings together over 20 Aboriginal artists who work across textile and craft-based traditions. Exhibiting artists include Tony Albert, Jean Baptiste Apuatimi, Frances Djulibing, Lola Greeno, and Lipaki Marlaypa among many more. Mediums span textiles, sculpture, photography, painting and video to demonstrate the diverse range of works engaging with the artistic traditions of Indigenous Australia. “string theory is a multi-disciplinary contemporary tribute to the rich textile tradition of Aboriginal artists and takes as its starting point the way in which the MCA’s collecting policy has always acknowledged such work as contemporary art,” said MCA Director Elizabeth Ann Macregor. For further details visit mca.com.au

Below: Sam Tupou work in Towards The Morning Sun

TOWARDS THE MORNING SUN

As we tear off, shred and then cremate the final month of winter from our One Direction calendars, Campelltown Arts Centre are manning the gallery decks ready for Towards The Morning Sun, a celebration of Pacific art. Australian-based Kiwi Keren Ruki who is of Tainui descent has curated the exhibition, which features a mix of mid-career and established artists. Thought-provoking pieces straddle a range of mediums including performance, printmaking, installation, photo media and video. Towards The Morning Sun runs from September 7 through October 21. Head to campbelltown.nsw.gov.au for further details.

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TRANCE

Eyes On The Dangling Pocket Watch [Cassel] separately. But it was in a circumstance like this with a bunch of people and I think if it’s to work, it has to be more private. Rosario, on the other hand, went off with him in private and researched it with a hypnotherapist so I think she went through it. Whether you are one of the highly suggestible ones is actually the interesting part. That’s what people would feel nervous about. Maybe the actors think, ‘Oh, if I am highly suggestible, he can make me do anything in front of all these people I am going to make a film with. I’m not sure that’s a good idea!’ Did you try it yourself? No. Directors are control freaks I’m afraid. You are never going to let yourself go on a thing like that, especially when you’re preparing a piece of work. Why did you choose Goya’s painting Witches In The Air? The Goya is obviously the first and only choice really. We tried to say in the film that he is the first great painter of the human mind. He is the great originator of the psychological painting. Prior to Goya, there were portraits and they may have been psychologically incisive or informative, but Goya went inside the bullring. He went inside the mind and painted what’s inside the mind, so for a film like this that was a wonderful place to begin. Also that particular painting Witches In The Air subtly introduces a slightly surreal element into the film. You don’t realise it because you just think it’s a painting that has been auctioned and has been stolen, but what you’re actually seeing is that Simon is like that guy in the painting underneath, who is hidden and can’t quite see what is above and around him. And another reason for choosing the Goya work was because he was a great depicter of the nude female form. Does the nudity in the film have a function? It does for Rosario’s character, Elizabeth Lamb, because it’s a plot device. It’s a completely integral plot device, so it was nonnegotiable, which is great because nudity is always difficult with actors. They will always sign on and then try to negotiate their way out of it, understandably, but it was obviously absolutely integral to the plot and the film. So we had to reassure Rosario a bit about the way it was going to be shot. Then I just had to try and persuade the men to get their kit off as well because it would only be fair in a film like this. They were all good for it.

Rosario Dawson in Trance

anny Boyle’s Trance is a frenzied psychological thriller about the mind and its mysteries. Story goes: Franck’s (Vincent Cassel) a crook who plans to steal Goya’s Witches In The Air from a London auction house, but his inside man Simon (James McAvoy) suffers from nearfatal head injuries and forgets where he’s hidden the painting. Next, sexed-up hypnotherapist Dr Elizabeth Lam (Rosario Dawson), is brought in to extract critical memories from Simon’s unconscious mind while he is in a trance. Thereafter unfolds a disorienting, non-linear narrative that questions reality and illusion, truths and untruths. Trance is a complex, visual film best explained in more depth by Boyle himself. Why did you want to make Trance? It was a couple of things, really. One, I had never really made a film with a woman in the engine room. And of course it doesn’t look like that at the beginning of the film because Elizabeth [Rosario thebrag.com

Dawson] enters the film late and she appears to be a kind of innocent, professional bystander. The other reason was to be able to make a film that was a series of trances. Once Elizabeth enters the film, that’s what it is. I love that in cinema because there’s something utterly bewitching about it if it’s done well – everything passes for present time. It doesn’t matter whether it’s past time, future, time imagined, time illusionary. You believe it as being now. Film is a unique art form like that.

Did you get your actors into a state of hypnosis at any point? We had a psychologist who was a bigwig Professor of Psychology at Bristol and a hypnotist, I think. He went through the procedure with James [McAvoy] and Vincent

It’s quite full-on nudity for a mainstream film… It’s interesting. When I was a kid growing up in the ’70s, nudity was everywhere and now it’s gone. They all have these theories in Hollywood about why it’s like this now and they say that because porn has become so ubiquitous and so available that Hollywood has tried to separate itself from the porn industry by going the

“It doesn’t matter whether it’s past time, future, time imagined, time illusionary. You believe it as being now. Film is a unique art form like that.” other way. So there are fewer adult scenes in films. But films from the ’70s were full of sex. Sex was a big part of our lives and a big part of our cinema and it was dealt with in many, many different ways. Some was controversial and casual. Things are much more coy now. Maybe coy is the wrong word, but there’s certainly a lot less of it so that’s what we’re trying to do. Was directing the opening ceremony of London’s 2012 Olympic Games in the middle of post-production helpful when making Trance? It was certainly helpful in a way that surprised me because normally when you shoot a film you’re saturated with knowledge of all that you’ve shot. So when I came back to the film after doing the Olympics I assumed I’d remember it all, but I didn’t. Your brain is filled up with other stuff and it was weird watching it all again. It was like reading the script for the first time and you don’t normally get a chance to revisit that innocence when you aren’t quite sure what’s coming next and it’s actually very helpful. But even more important was realising that when you’re making films like this, you shouldn’t give too many clues. It was a real boon being able to come back to it with fresh eyes. Could you say that there’s a typical Danny Boyle film? There is something that virtually all my films conform to – the quest movie. There’s usually a character who faces insurmountable odds and overcomes them. This also applies to Trance. But the difference with Trance is that you don’t know who that character is, and even people who finish it may not be sure who that character is. But if you saw it in chronological order: a guy meets a woman, they have an affair, the guy is incredibly violent and possessive of the woman and therefore she erases him. He returns, as the woman knows he will, but this time he returns with four other violent men. This woman versus five violent men and in fact she overcomes them. So there are the insurmountable odds for you. What: Trance is released on digitalHD on August 28, and Bluray and DVD on September 4.

James McAvoy in Trance

Were there any other films that influenced you? A huge influence on Trance was Nick Roeg whose work seems to have stylistically informed films like Memento, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind and Inception, which all have the idea that present time is an illusion. So to be able to make a film that was like that, based on a series of trances, was one of the main reasons for wanting to make Trance. Art stuff is great. It’s fun to do that, but that’s all incidental to this other idea. BRAG :: 527 :: 26:08:13 :: 21

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In The Mind Of Igor [DANCE] Starting Anew By Alasdair Duncan

gor Stravinsky’s groundbreaking ballet and orchestral work The Rite Of Spring had its premiere in Paris in 1913. A century later, Akram Khan Company’s In The Mind Of Igor (iTMOi) celebrates the chaotic energy and vibrant spirit of Stravinsky’s original, while creating an entirely new work. “Akram wasn’t interested in creating another carbon copy of this well known work,” dancer Hannes Langolf explains. “He wanted to take the themes and interpret them in a whole new way. Stravinsky’s work broke convention and tradition in classical music, and Akram’s work does the same to Stravinsky.” iTMOi riffs on the themes of pagan rituals, rebirth and sacrifice, but also celebrates the idea of breaking away from the original to create something entirely new. Hannes Langolf was born in Germany, but moved to London a decade ago to study dance. He had long been an admirer of choreographer Akram Khan and his forwardthinking approach, and iTMOi gave them their first chance to work together. “I’d been curious to work with him for a long time, and I feel very privileged,” he says. “What I really admire about Akram’s work is that he has a real commitment to movement, and he likes to push the body in certain ways. I’m at a point in my life where I feel like this is the last time I can do that to my body. You get to a certain age as a performer when you realise that if you

want to do something really physical, the time is now. It was perfect timing, because I wanted to challenge my body while I still could, and Akram’s work really allows me to do that.” In Stavinsky’s original a sacrificial virgin is chosen, and at the conclusion of the work, dances herself to death, in a ritual that celebrates the annual renewal of spring. In this version, Langolf’s character, a young man, steps in at the last minute to be sacrificed himself, a gesture that is intended to break the tradition of sacrifice. “As you can imagine, there’s definitely a physical challenge to portraying a sacrifice,” he says. “You have to find that place inside you that has that emotional response you need – you need to find desperation, you need to abandon control.” iTMOi is all about breaking from tradition and abandoning control, and for Langolf as a dancer, the need to break away from the familiar proved to be the biggest challenge. “Control is always one of the things that I seek,” he says. “I’m someone who likes to do things right, who likes to practice things, to really understand them. Abandoning those concepts was a real challenge. In the end, I felt I was freed from the inhibitions of performance. Usually, when you’re on stage, you’re doing exactly what you’re told, and you’ve analysed the movements too much that you know them

intimately. It was very difficult to break away from that.” iTMOi features a musical score created by contemporary musicians Nitin Sawhney, Jocelyn Pook and Ben Frost – they’re three different composers from very different backgrounds, and yet, in a show that’s all about breaking away from traditional concepts, their individual contributions somehow fit together. “Stravinsky’s music was complicated and unpredictable, which is why it caused an outrage at the time,” Langolf explains. “The score for this work shares

that unpredictable quality. It’s not built directly on The Rite Of Spring, so you won’t hear familiar themes or melodies, but there are elements there. For instance, we use a rhythmical pattern from Stravinsky’s work, but break it down into text.” What: In The Mind Of Igor Where: Sydney Opera House When: August 28 – September 1 More: sydneyoperahouse.com

Serve The People [VISUAL ARTS] Critical Mass By Alex Sutcliffe

ormer Art Gallery of New South Wales director Edmund Capon has jumped in to curate the forthcoming spring show at Chippendale’s White Rabbit Gallery. Serve The People, opening on Friday August 30, will be amongst the first of Capon’s projects to come to fruition following his departure from the Sydney institution late last year. The show will work around three themes: fear, anarchy and hope. Calmly outmaneuvering the buzz term ‘guest curator’, Neilson explains Capon’s appointment this season: “Edmund was brought in because we needed him and he’s a friend. And I couldn’t think of anybody better, anywhere, to do it.” A head cheerleader of sorts for Asian art in Australia, Capon has championed White Rabbit Gallery ever since giving the Gallery’s opening address in 2009. “He’s always felt that it was part of the New South Wales’ Art Gallery,” says Neilson.

Yan Siwen, His-4 (detail), 2012

His show will hang off the title Serve The People, which was originally a directive at all forms of art under Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China. “Don’t expect a heavily-political show,” Neilson warns. “There are some pieces that might surprise you.” Capon’s gem of a title works on the simple and elegant premise that to show is to tell; the sum of works assembled reveals a compelling vision of the very recent history of creativity in China.

The Rocket

In conversation, Neilson agrees that his thesis contains everything that excites her most about contemporary Chinese art. A mixture of vintages will appear in Serve The People. Emerging artists will represent alongside veritable legends like Lui Dahong who grew up a troublemaker within the confines of Mao’s oppressive rule between 1965-1968. Dahong’s works use humour and visual parody to tickle China’s collective funny bone. Scholars say that when local audiences laugh at his work it creates unity and openness, releasing tension and making it easier to encourage discussion about the past. Try it out with Dregs Of The Old Society. The young photographer Yan Siwen was born some twenty years later in 1989, long after China had opened up to the West. Her wet plate collodion prints are achingly poetic and stand as disaffected tributes to a lost love affair. The precise accomplishment of every one of her images is staggering. She works with a 17th century photographic process that graduated the daguerreotype. In the perfect dose of method and madness, it uses black glass in place of paper. MadeIn are an acclaimed, Shanghai-based company of artists. Their Immortals’ Trails In Secret Land is an audacious piece of

patchwork pastiche that has a bizarre sense of authority, much like that of an elephant in the room daring you to question its legitimacy. It’s part of an ongoing series about decoration and ornament; the work is a proliferation of symbols that does away with meaning and message. The company’s chief executive officer Xu Zhen decided to go corporate and trade on the label Made In China because he had taken his individual identity as far as it could profitably go. In these few snapshots we can see the promise of a provocative show. “Whatever we show at White Rabbit is a document of what I have thought worthy. I think whoever curates for White Rabbit has to really think about the show, because although I have three hundred artists, no two are similar. You’ve got to try and get a story from three hundred different stories and that requires a lot of thought. Edmund has put a lot of time into this,” says Neilson. What: Serve The People Where: White Rabbit Gallery When: August 30 – February 2, 2014 More: whiterabbitcollection.org

The Rocket

[FILM] An Extraordinary Journey By Alasdair Duncan

hen filmmaker Kim Mordaunt learned that the Asian nation of Laos is the most-bombed country in the world, per capita, he was determined to find out more. His investigation led him to a documentary film, Bomb Harvest, about the nation’s troubled history, and then to a feature film, The Rocket, that tells the story of Laos on a much more intimate scale. The Rocket, Mordaunt’s debut feature, is about a young boy’s journey across the country with an eccentric makeshift family in tow, in an attempt to find a new home after his village is razed by developers. The film’s title comes from the rocket festivals held at the start of the rainy season in Laos, and it was just such a festival that proved the seed of inspiration for the story. “Rocket festivals are pretty wild,” Mordaunt says. “We went to quite a few of them while we were making the documentary Bomb Harvest. In fact, we went to one of them with a bomb-disposal expert named Laith Stevens, and he was terrified – he said he’d rather be opening bombs, because these festivals are just too unpredictable!” The festivals, he says, are joyous and spiritual events. Participants create their own rockets – huge beasts that can weigh up to a tonne – and then shoot them up into the air to ask for rain. “You’re 24 :: BRAG :: 527 :: 26:08:13

seeing a whole country’s history in this cathartic event,” he says. “It’s hugely exciting and fun and terrifying all in one, and straight away, we knew that we had to use this in our story.” The majority of actors in The Rocket are first timers, discovered on the streets. The young Sitthiphon Disamoe had lived on the streets before being cast in the lead role of Ahlo. “We were just wowed by this kid,” Mordaunt says. “He’s a survivor, and he aligned a lot with the qualities of the character I’d written. After talking to him for a while, I realised I wanted to go back and rewrite the script to make the character a bit closer to who this boy really was. It was a long process, once again – there were a lot of screen tests, and we needed to make sure that he’d be able to handle the journey we were going on, while not wearing him out.” Loungnam Kaosainam, who plays Ahlo’s young friend Kia, was discovered in a drama group on the outskirts of Vientiane. “We’d searched all over, in temples and on the streets, trying to find the right person,” Mordaunt says. “We’d already seen a lot of people, quite experienced actors, but she stood out in terms of her very strong sense of self. Also, her eyes – when you’re making cinema, you’re always looking to see how

thought reads in people’s eyes, what you can tell through expression. She was very strong in those terms, and also, she was just a strong, cheeky, gutsy presence.” Given the troubled relationship between Laos and the West, I ask Mordaunt how he was treated as a filmmaker in the country, and indeed, if people were suspicious of his motivations. “Laos is still very closed to the media, and doing things there can take a long time,” he says. “Some people go and take a

guerrilla approach, but I wouldn’t necessarily advise that. I mean, if you go in with the government’s permission, they’ve talked to local authorities and village chiefs, there’s a whole line of communication, but you’re trusted, so it’s well worth it. We spent a long time building those relationships when we were making Bomb Harvest, so by the time it came to make The Rocket, we were set.” What: The Rocket opens in cinemas on Thursday August 29.

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Film & Theatre Reviews Hits and misses on the silver screen and the bareboards around town

searching for more. In the film’s defence, there is a decent twist bringing the narrative’s climax into fruition just like a well-placed musical crescendo. But it doesn’t happen until 100 minutes in. Yes, that’s one hour and 40 minutes.

Geoffrey Rush In The Best Offer

And to be honest, the performances could’ve been better. Rush personifies Virgil’s genius proficiency with relative ease, but Sylvia Hoek’s character Claire lacks conviction. Claire is a mysterious, young, beautiful heiress who commissions Oldman to evaluate her recently deceased parents’ estate. But she suffers from agoraphobia, you see, and remains hidden in a secret room in her colossal villa. Hoek can ■ Film

JOBS In cinemas August 29

■ Film

In cinemas August 29

film is, however, it’s just too damn long. Add to that an awfully dramatic score by Italian orchestrator Ennio Morricone and you’ve something that might not take a commercial audience’s fancy.

Giuseppe Tornatore’s The Best Offer is a visually stunning, simple tale set in Europe’s exclusive antiques and fine art world. Following renowned auctioneer Virgil Oldman (Geoffrey Rush) who’s obsessed with notions of validity, the film casts a weary eye over the elusive industry and its flaws while simultaneously negotiating an unusual love story. As original as the

Don’t get me wrong, though. There’ll be plenty of people appreciative of The Best Offer’s lamenting, string-heavy score and the script’s unmistakable Gothic tendencies (I couldn’t get Horace Walpole’s classic The Castle Of Otranto out of my head), but for a modern audience looking for a little more depth, some might find themselves

THE BEST OFFER

■ Theatre

another moment mimicking a certain filmic grandiosity.

Until September 10

Puppets seem to be Sydney Theatre’s device of the moment. Here, it works. At one juncture, Mr Percival seemed to actually lift off into flight and I still have no idea how. Leaping beyond the pantomime potential of this set-up is Storm Boy’s main feat; through the simplicity of production, the play’s moral message comes through loud and clear. In order to come to terms with grief in a wild, ancient country, one needs to accept that change can be relentless and glacial.

STORM BOY Storm Boy is for children and for the child in every adult. Colin Thiele’s classic tale of loss sees three male outsiders – Storm Boy (played alternatively by Joshua Challenor and Rory Potter), his dad Hideaway Tom (Peter O’Brien), and his friend Fingerbone Bill (Trevor Jamieson) – emotionally cut adrift on an isolated stretch of coast. Designer Michael Scott-Mitchell’s driftwood wave set, and an effectively sparse light and sound designscape, allow this production to create a few genuinely cinematic moments invoking the eye to zoom across the stage and frame the action close-up. The climax is one such moment. Quite suddenly, the stage is transformed and a storm is summoned via a smoke machine giving way to billowing downward gusts of wind and strobe lights. The final scene where the puppeteers of Storm Boy’s beloved pelicans – Mr Ponder, Mr Pride and Mr Percival – appear backlit and God-like at the peak of the driftwood wave independent of their bird props, is

For those not in the technological know (Hi Dad!), Steve Jobs is the founder of the most powerful technology company in the world. This is the first of three upcoming biopics attempting to document Jobs’ life and the meteoric rise of Apple. The film opens at the famous iPod launch and it’s easy to mistake Hollywood pretty boy Ashton Kutcher for the real thing. As the unlikely lead in this rather serious tale, Kutcher does a commendable job mimicking the Apple founder’s mannerisms, walk and speech. We’re then taken to Reed College where a young Jobs has dropped out but continues to take classes while not wearing shoes (or deodorant as we discover later) and goes on an extended, yet totally anticlimactic, acid trip. Presumably and obviously, this is meant to demonstrate the hippy, rebellious and innovative side of his nature. He then joins forces with Woz, AKA Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak (Josh Gad), and together along with a rag

screech well, but in Claire her Welsh-Britishsomething accent grates. Also, the lovemaking scene between the two is slightly disturbing. The Best Offer is by no means a two-person story either. Donald Sutherland plays the part of Billy Whistler, Oldman’s creepy friend, well, but that only shines through right at the end. The Best Offer is certainly worth a watch if only for the styling and exquisite cinematography. You’ll also enjoy it if you’re one for gawking over how richness of Europe’s cultural history. Jack Arthur Smith

tag team of technological misfits, they bring the technology giant to life in Jobs’ parents’ garage. The remainder of the film systematically documents the challenges faced by Jobs as a result of his outlandishly innovative ideas and concludes just prior to the iPod revolution in 2001. Although initially entertaining, much of the film feels fragmented. This combined with the two-hour running time makes it difficult to remain connected. The depiction of the carnage resulting from Jobs’ singular vision also makes him a particularly unsympathetic protagonist. Whether or not we have a true depiction of the life and work of Jobs is hard to say, especially considering he is no longer here to defend himself. Even though technology is not the sexiest subject, Alan Sorkin’s The Social Network showed us it has the potential to thrill. Unfortunately, however, Jobs lacks such excitement, which makes the film disappointing given that its namesake was such a renegade. Hopefully The Newsroom creator can work his magic in the upcoming Sony production and do the story more justice than this current version. Lee Hutchison

Storm Boy is as childlike, heartwarming and compassionate as you’d expect. Not earth-shattering, but well executed for its target audience: school students, and those who grew up with the film and the book and want a trip down nostalgia lane. Viewers who are neither of those and unaccustomed to the sometimes stylised strictures of traditional stageplays will see the tragedy for what it is and have a more difficult time surrendering to this sweet story. Lauren Carroll Harris

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Arts Exposed What's in our diary...

Renaissance To Goya AGNSW, Art Gallery Rd, The Domain Opens August 31

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The Art Gallery of New South Wales is partnering with the British Museum to exhibit 130 fi ne prints and drawings from the European Renaissance. The exhibition Renaissance To Goya showcases a smorgasbord of work crafted in Spain spanning 250 years between the 16th and 19th century. Including works never previously displayed before, the exhibition offers an image of the ever-evolving Spanish cultural landscape during the Golden Age. There’s a slew of iconic artists represented including Diego Velázquez, Vicente Carducho and Alonso Cano (Madrid), Bartolomé Murillo and Francisco de Zubarán (Seville), and José de Ribera (Spanish Naples). For further details, visit artgallery.nsw. gov.au

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This September Shine a lantern rn of hope at this inspiring twilight ght walk to help cure leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma forever forever.

Learn more at lightthenight.org.au Francisco de Zurbaran, Head Of A Monk, 1635-55

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bread&thread Food & Fashion News...with Charli Hutchison and Lily White

CAFE PACI

Darlo veteran Café Pacifico is sadly no longer. In its place is Café Paci brought to us by Finnish chef Pasi Petänen. Café Paci who’ll man the decks for one year in the pop-up space to bring a seasonal menu to the table. The way it works? There’ll be a frequently changing five-course seasonal tasting menu at the set

price of $85. Sommelier Dennis Roman’s in charge of pouring and expect to see a diverse wine list with many available by the glass. The eye-candy? Designer George Livissianis (The Apollo) has taken sleek Scandinavian interiors as his inspiration to create an authentic, but relaxed atmosphere. For further details, visit cafepaci.com.au

AUSTRALIAN BEER FESTIVAL VOGUE FASHION’S NIGHT OUT

Brace your bank account and get ready to paint the town wearing your finest designer threads, because Vogue Fashion’s Night Out is brining the party on Thursday September 5. Sydney’s CBD will be transformed into a shopping extravaganza sporting all the glitz and glam a girl could ever want. Think runway shows, workshops, beauty sessions, live music, VIP parties and exclusive offers. Event highlights include the a. 100 Squared Emerging Designer Markets showcasing labels Get Frocked, Coco Liberace, White Rabbit and Carpe Diem, the unveiling of Christian Louboutin’s 12cm spiked-heel, speciallydesigned FNO show, and the slew of local and international DJs taking to the decks across the city. For more details and a list of participating retailers, visit vogue.com.au

THE COMEDY CIRCUIT

Surry Hills’ local fave The Forresters is bringing back the laughs with its hugely popular Comedy Circuit set to return for the Wednesday night slot. The weekly event will boast some of the funniest comedians gigging the

stand-up circuit like Gretel Killeen, Steve Philp and David Eastgate. Just $10 will score you a ticket to an evening of laughs. And the guys and gals bangin’ about the pans out back will be wooing the crowd with pizza for a tenner. Head to forresters.com.au for all the details.

THE CALIFORNIAN

Santa Barbara in Kings Cross, literally above the coke sign, has undergone a rebranding. The Californian at Santa Barbara is the Drink ‘n’ Dine empire’s latest eatery serving up LA-Mexican-Korean flavours. Think Baja fish tacos, calamari sliders, grilled watermelon and jalapeno, Korean fried chicken, sesame tempura crab and ocean trout ceviche. More? What about some Coca-Cola chicken, smoked pork loin and cuttlefish, flamed tune and blackbean, Asado beef and salsa verde? And to wash it all down, The Californian’s revamped cocktail list takes its cue from Hollywood greats. Cali Screwdrivers, Mojito 90210, Betty Ford Old Fashioned and Aloe Margaritas are all on offer. Go on, get amongst it. You know you want to. Check out facebook.com/santabarbarasydney

EAT YOUR HISTORY

The kitchen at Vaucluse House

PHOENIX DINER THE LANSDOWNE HOTEL, 2 CITY RD CHIPPENDALE MON – SUN 10AM-3AM

within Sydney Living Museums’ portfolio, most of the action is set to take place at some of the most spectacular venues around town. There’ll be a long lunch at Vaucluse House and Stories from the Cellar at Elizabeth Bay House. Rolling into the festive season, there’ll also be plenty going on. “We are launching our first Christmas Artisan Markets; a pop-up cooking school in one of our colonial kitchens; and a talk series, My Food History, that includes chefs Alessandro Pavoni, David Tsirekas, Adam Liaw and Anna Wong,” says Goggin. Eat your history: a shared table opens at the Museum of Sydney on September 28 and runs until March 9, 2014. For more details and the full program, please visit sydneylivingmuseums. com.au/food

BATCH BURGERS & ESPRESSO

Burger lovers at the ready … you’re headed over the bridge for your next bounty. Batch Burgers & Espresso (2/3A Broughton St, Kirribilli) has opened and is wowing the pants off lower north shore locals. Think breakfast burgers and burritos, hot dogs and chilli dogs with 1950s atmosphere aplenty. The joint’s jumping with a serious Americanainspired fitout and rumour has it there’s even Cherry Ripe and Mars Bar-flavoured shakes. The best part? You can pull up a stool seven days a week, 7am-10pm. Visit batchburger. com for more information.

LORD OF THE FRIES

Fries, fries and more fries. This Thursday August 29 Sydney’s latest Melbourne import, Lord of the Fries, will dish out free fries (and sauce) to the first 200 punters through the door during the store’s official launch at 537 George St. Yeah, we thought so too. That’s a whole lot of potato. Doors open noon, so hustle people!

food profile The Lansdowne. Upstairs is now home to our homely diner, Phoenix, which boasts exposed brick walls and a bunch of fireside nooks. Downstairs is stripped back with an almost industrial feel to it. Think New York loft apartment vibe brought to life by distressed walls, Edison globes and pool tables, and a few pinball machines. Flavours: Phoenix offers food with flare. Think homely urban food – Bluesy Mexicana meets American diner at pub grub prices. Something to start with: Start with the Mac’d Out Cheese Fritters. They’re a stoner’s take on soul food – crumbed then deep-fried mac ‘n’ cheese with parmesan and watercress. Crunchy on the outside, soft and cheesy on the inside. Yum! The main course: A must try is our slow-cooked Ruby Rib’s, dripping with port and pomegranate. The meat just drops off the bone. Or even a pulled pork pizza pie with slow-cooked pork, pear, blue cheese, walnuts and mustard cress.

The basics: After a fire tore through the historic Lansdowne Hotel earlier this year, many were left pondering the fate of the famed student hangout. Now, some seven months later, we’ve something different. With new management, a

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think brioche, banana, Nutella, jaffle, sundae, sparkles and a cherry on top. Make us drool: If you’re looking for a good hearty meal with a bit of class, something that’s going to leave you with a full stomach, but not with a empty wallet, Phoenix is the place for you. Cuddle up in front of an open fire, share a big plate of food and relax.

new design and a brand new menu there’s a few things we reckon you should know…

Care for a drink? Definitely the passionfruit mojito. The classic with a fruity twist!

The bill comes to: You could go with all these suggestions for $40-50, but you probably won’t be able to finish it all by yourself. There are also $10 midweek specials. Mondays are Mexican Madness and on Tuesdays you can snag three sliders for a tenner.

Eye-candy: Designer Paul Kelly has come on board to help out with the reshaping of

Room for dessert? The Secret Sundae! This is the showstopper. Without giving too much away,

thelansdownehotel.com.au

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Vaucluse House photo by Cath Muscat

Sydney Living Museums is set to launch a diverse program of workshops, tastes, talks and tours in celebration of our city’s rich culinary history – Sydney Living Museums: Food. The centrepiece of the program will be the new exhibition Eat your history: a shared table, which takes audiences on a tour of Sydney’s early food culture from 1788 through to the 1950s. “We have also brought together some of Sydney’s great chefs, influential thinkers and knowledgeable food historians to curate and recreate food experiences that deserve to be revived and enjoyed again today,” says director of Sydney Living Museums Mark Goggin. Taking advantage of the historic homes, gardens and kitchen collections

The legendary Australian Beer Festival is turning nine this year so we reckon you should help celebrate by joining the festivities at The Australian Heritage Hotel in The Rocks from October 18-20. More than 12,000 beer lovers will rejoice in the fact that their palettes will be kept content with over 100 Australian beers on offer. There’ll be blind tasting sessions, brewer seminars and the Home Brew Championship competition with snacking, stalls and award ceremonies aplenty. Entry is zilch and tasting tickets will set you back $15 for 10. For more info head to australianheritagehotel.com

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Album Reviews What's been crossing our ears this week...

ALBUM OF THE WEEK MAC DEMARCO

presents the movements of the core setup: two guitars, bass, drums and vocals. Busy melodic guitar lines decorate many songs, while DeMarco’s placid baritone frequently depicts a grubby reality with romantic allure.

2 Spunk

Xxxx Mac DeMarco’s 2 is a stream of concise and well-executed songs containing implicit humour and a general suggestion to just take a breath.

2, the second record from Canada’s Mac DeMarco, opens with ‘Cooking Up Something Good’, introducing a queasy, crooked-neck guitar jangling through an up-tempo, major key riff. DeMarco’s contemplative vocals assume an abstracted viewpoint to portray an aberrant family home scenario. The chorus refrain, “When life moves this slowly / Just try to let it go,” along with the casual ease of DeMarco’s low register, suggests the domestic peculiarities (“My brother’s in the ballet”, “Daddy’s in the basement cooking up something fine”) aren’t worth getting agitated about. The album maintains the steady saunter established by the opening number, and direct production lucidly

THE PREATURES Is This How You Feel? Universal/Mercury Records

Sydney five-piece The Preatures have an ever-growing fan base, a remix by Classixx and a Vanda & Young Songwriting prize under their belts – and thankfully Is This How You Feel? justifies the growing hype. Following on from 2012’s Shaking Hands EP, The Preatures have pulled out all stops for their second EP, and while it’s all too easy to drag out a Fleetwood Mac comparison, the sound the band have honed here is a well polished pastiche of their influences. Dipping into classic rock sensibilities, dabs of shoe-shuffling ’60s and ’70s pop and a splash of blues, The Preatures might pay obvious homage to eras bygone but their sound is wrapped in a distinctly 2013-flavoured package. Title track ‘Is This How You Feel?’ is pure, infectious pop that has tinges of retro boogie stamped all over it but manages to be arrestingly current at the same time. Good luck getting the chorus out of your head anytime soon. Frontwoman Isabella Manfredi’s sultry vocals play off fellow vocalist Gideon Benson’s perfectly. Check out the stripped back slow jam ‘All My Love’ – you can practically see the raindrops spitting on the window and feel the heartbreak oozing into your chest. Sophomore single ‘Manic Baby’ may feature one of the more delectable guitar riffs you’re likely to sink your teeth into this year but closer ‘Dark Times’ comes up trumps. All sparkly, unashamedly upbeat ’70s pop rock, it seems The Preatures saved one of the best to close it all off with a shake of the hips and a cheeky guitar solo for good measure. Is This How You Feel? is wellbalanced, retro-tinged indie rock but most of all, it is really, really good fun. Marissa Demetriou

A$AP FERG

The album kicks off with the apocalyptic swing of ‘Let It Go’, a track that’s full of violent bravado and thuggish threats, while rattling hi-hats and eerie production lace this standout cut. Similar themes appear on the testosterone-fuelled ‘Dump Dump’ and ‘Work (Remix)’ – both of which are furiously snatching at the title for club banger of the year. Features on Trap Lord include Bone Thugs-N-Harmony lending some tongue-twisting verses to ‘Lord’, while Onyx tear their way through the subtly titled ‘Fuck Out My Face’. This calibre of guests reflects Ferg’s greatest success – he’s able to deliver a sonically fresh (albeit brooding) record that pays homage to the golden years of hardcore hip hop. With this being said, the record also oozes with Southern obnoxiousness and horrorcore soundscapes. Like many of his colleagues who subscribe to the ‘trap’ mentality, Ferg’s album will be criticised for being lyrically repetitive and typical of rap’s gangster clichés. However, his possessed flow and erratic personality ensures that this is an electric affair throughout. The demonic brashness of Trap Lord means it isn’t for everybody – but it’s enough to capture a wide array of rap fans from both the old school and younger demographics. It’s an album that’s best shared over a drink (or ten), full of adrenaline anthems and smokers’ soundtracks. Trap Lord is a worthy debut from A$AP Ferg that shows plenty of promise. Christopher Kevin Au

‘Freaking Out The Neighbourhood’ is centred around an energised three-chord sequence while the vocals remain fairly laconic. DeMarco’s style is descriptive rather than particularly expressive and the lack of affectedness actually gives insight into the

Listening to these songs is a guilty pleasure, and should remain a secret, if not for the fact that the songs are resolutely attractive. ‘By The Time I Get To Phoenix’ is a resounding tale of fated masochism that can rip apart the listener. Similarly, ‘Galveston’ deals with vexed relationships, but from the polar opposite. Here the protagonist is not seeking to run away from responsibility but is determined to retain the desperate resolve over the imposed distance. ‘Hey Little One’ continues the theme so entrenched in country music, beguiling relationships and distance. And again on ‘Postcard From Paris’. ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’ is the pinnacle, the song which Johnny Cash forgot to write. Drenched in reverb, you know you join the writer on the rocky road to superstardom with resolve in spades. “And l dream of the things I’ll do / With a subway token and a dollar tucked inside my shoe / There’ll be a load of compromising on the road to my horizon / But l’m going to be where the lights are shining on me.” Cheers to that. These are subtle re-workings of material that are rooted in the past, but in a most pleasant way, rather than a faded memory trying to relive past glories in an ordinary way. Bronius Zumeris

Slow Focus ATP Recordings Why does our future sound like our past? This is an appropriate question to ask oneself when you immerse yourself in the seven songs and 52 minutes that is Slow Focus, the first album in four years from Bristol electronic twopiece Fuck Buttons. The choice to open the album with the track ‘Brain Freeze’ is a clear indication that Fuck Buttons’ success has not driven them to pander to a wider audience. This dense eight minutes and 35 seconds of music is

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like being blasted in the ear with a highpressure hose while in the distance you can hear a parrot being raped by a whale. ‘The Red Wing’ is a highlight, with its ridiculously deep and uplifting organ which drives the listener’s thoughts upwards then forwards with a fuzzy inexorability reminiscent of Bjork’s incredible hijacking of popular music, 1995’s ‘Army Of Me’. It would appear that after the mainstream notoriety Fuck Buttons acquired through 2009 single ‘Surf Solar’ and its use at the London Olympics opening ceremony, they’ve made a conscious decision to stay away from that 1990s glitch techno sound. Unlike previous album Tarot Sport, which was produced by British DJ Andrew

Augustus Welby

I had a friend who had a Dutch uncle. We met him once during his visit to our fair shores. He was pleasant enough, albeit with that brusque conversational delivery typically associated with Dutch nationals. He was frustrated with aspects of the Australian sociological experience – public transport, particularly, about which he had a point – though his objections to culinary matters held less water than a leaking dyke. All of that has bugger all relevance to Dutch Uncles and their album, Out Of Touch In The Wild. For a start, Dutch Uncles aren’t even Dutch – they’re English (though maybe they can trace their heritage to William of Orange) – and their radical approach to time tempo is anathema to the clichéd Dutch sense of order. Nothing is ever as it might be expected on this record: ‘Pondage’ emerges as Dungen-lite, before morphing into a glistening white funk track. ‘Bellio’ sparkles with the harmonic wonder of The Polyphonic Spree, before mysteriously spreading its wings toward the English new wave scene of 1982. ‘Fester’ is the Tom Tom Club gazing in awe at African rhythms, ‘Godboy’ is the best pop track never released in 1985 and ‘Threads’ takes you to a place of cerebral exploration and psychedelic pop indulgence. From there, we get ‘Flexxin’ – in the wrong hands, this would be trite, but with Dutch Uncles it’s the lost Hall and Oates classic we’ve all wanted to embrace. ‘Phaedra’ is Hong Kong Garden devoid of its punk wash and ‘Brio’ is the best six-minute coda to an idiosyncratic pop record you’ve heard since David Byrne turned punk rock inside out in 1980. You can listen to this album 100 times, and you’re still none the wiser about where it’s going, or why it’s going there. And that’s a good thing. Patrick Emery

INDIE ALBUM OF THE WEEK FUCK BUTTONS

DeMarco’s lethargic composure isn’t indicative of an absence of ambition or a lack of proactive will. ‘The Stars Keep Calling My Name’ reveals searching desires, both ‘My Kind Of Lover’ and the devotional ballad ‘Together’ show genuine sentimentality, and even the most expressive moments are imbued with a touch of irony and a slight wink.

LONDON GRAMMAR

Out Of Touch In The Wild Memphis Industries/ Breakaway Recordings

See You There Inertia Ever reflected on the days listening to 2SM whilst Mum was hanging out the washing? Even to young developing ears, the mundanity of the likes of Air Supply or Leo Sayer could be broken by the spiralling sounds of ‘By The Time I Get To Phoenix’ or ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’. Now, the man behind these tunes crashes through the decades to reclaim his place at the front of the riverboat besotted Americana pile.

perspective of the narrator. Singing, “Sorry mama … I know it’s no fun when your first son starts freaking out the neighbourhood” with an utter lack of alarm indicates he’s not exactly repentant.

DUTCH UNCLES

GLEN CAMPBELL

Trap Lord RCA Fresh off his Australian appearances with A$AP Rocky, A$AP Ferg has finally unleashed the highly anticipated Trap Lord. Ferg’s full-length debut sees the Harlem native establish himself as not only a frontrunner in the A$AP Mob, but an animated and accomplished solo artist.

‘Ode To Viceroy’ is a speak-sing paean for a cheap brand of cigarettes and DeMarco’s deadpan demeanour is somewhat subverted by the subject matter. He discloses affection without worrying about the potential negatives that could arise. Ultimately the song proves to be a fairly enticing advertisement for the poison’s calming effect.

Weatherall, Slow Focus is self-produced. The track that best encapsulates Fuck Buttons’ push forward into future sounds is the menacing ‘Stalker’. Again, if you immerse yourself in the track, the mood and images elicited by the title are made chillingly real. The final song on the album, ‘Hidden Xs’ is somewhat of an atmospheric piece of music that delivers the listener happily home from the grimness of previous tracks. Four years in the making, Slow Focus is an album that is exactly that, an abstraction that if listened to from start to finish becomes something tangible in the mind of the beholder.

If You Wait Dew Process London Grammar gained a lot of traction off their beautiful Metal & Dust EP, and through vocalist Hannah Reid’s collaboration with Disclosure on their track ‘Help Me Lose My Mind’. Their debut album If You Wait is a further exploration of their sound through themes of love and relationships. Album opener ‘Hey Now’ is a perfectly produced track that dances with despair, as Reid’s gorgeous, deep voice speaks volumes: “Hey now / Letters burning by my bed for you / Hey now / I can feel my instincts here for you”. The percussive guitar plucks, sparing drum echoes and swelling synth pads blossom around Reid’s strong vocals and it all makes you feel so close yet distant; strong yet so vulnerable; warm but so cold. And Reid’s vocals are really the lynchpin to London Grammar – the instrumentation is like a beautifully sprinkled garnish over her absolute main course of a voice. As she continues to hone her craft, here’s hoping Reid will utilise the strength of her lower register more often, where a husky, powerful voice emerges. The sombre cover of ‘Nightcall’ is a take on Kavinsky’s ’80s electro soundtrack (the theme for 2011 film Drive). London Grammar strip the song of its electronic backbone, and when it is Reid bleeding anguish out of the words instead of the dehumanising vocoder on Kavinsky’s version, it becomes an anthem of sorrow and loneliness. London Grammar are going to draw comparisons to many of their UK contemporaries – they’re like the xx with balladry, Florence Welch without the ostentation, and Reid’s voice is very Jessie Ware at times. This is by no means a bad thing though, and their delicate, organic songwriting will go a long way. Raf Seneviratne

OFFICE MIXTAPE And here are the albums that have helped BRAG HQ get through the week... BOY & BEAR - Harlequin Dream GORILLAZ - Plastic Beach VARIOUS - Fast Forward: Indie Trax Vol. 2

RÖYKSOPP - Melody A.M. DR. DRE - 2001

Denver Maxx

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live reviews What we've been out to see...

BASTILLE, TIGERTOWN

soon forgiven with the stirringly heavy build of set opener ‘Bad Blood’. The instant singalong commitment of my fellow crowdians over the pulsing MIDI drum pad made evident just how good at this Bastille have become since playing their first gig less than three years ago.

Metro Theatre Wednesday August 14 Naming your band after your birthday can be a heinous mistake (heard of Jesus and the Christmases? Didn’t think so). That is, unless you were born on Bastille Day, in which case you’ll probably sell out your first-ever show halfway across the globe. Headed by Dan Smith’s gritty pipes, the London-based four-piece set out to blitz the Metro with the spirited indie rock soundscapes of their debut album, Bad Blood. Warming up the stage were local Sydney folksters Tigertown, with sweeping harmonies, heavy reverb and percussive exchanges between the kit and a tambourine channelling Fleetwood Mac. The quintet played catchy ditties from their first two EPs; ‘Lions And Witches’ proving a melodic dream after they’d broken the ice with some impressive cuts off latest release Wandering Eyes. The intoxicating mix of Charlie Collins’ piercing yet light lead vocal with the smooth echoes of violin and occasional trumpet built the set to a killer closer, ‘Morning Has Finally Come’. Apart from the infectious foot-tapping, the crowd watched the quintet in a trancelike state; a very good sign. If the stage set-up of mini stadium light stands was not enough, the sea of phones thrust into the air ensured a royal reception for Bastille, who emerged with raised hands and matching black band tees à la something metal. This faux pas was

Bassist Will Farquarson vaunted a mix of slinky grooves and hammering lines that punctured the ambience of Kyle Simmons’ relentless synth. With Simmons mounting a second bass for several tracks, Chris ‘Woody’ Wood assaulting the glittercoated drum kit, and a strobe synchronised to every hit, Sydney’s inner city musical den was transformed into an arena, each anthem a crescendo for the wide-eyed audience. So what if the lyricism was fairly lacklustre? Every song was matched with responsive slurs and unashamed participation from the crowd. Line. For. Line. Smith’s Bieberesque locks towered over the worshippers as he humbly admitted (in his thick cockney accent) to be “really, really bad at dancing. The only good thing I can do is this”, before jumping mechanically into the air. All were ready to fist pump to ‘Icarus’, declaring “Icarus is flying to close to the sun” in unison, and leading into the impressive genretranscending cover of City High’s ‘What Would You Do?’ And of course, the “EEH EEH OH, AH OH” room-quaking hook of chart crusher ‘Pompeii’ ended the night – a revolutionary effort. Mina Kitsos

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OD AND MUSIC O F T A E R G Contact: chris@fair ustralia” A in t n ra u a st e R t en “Best Entertainm EY

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Lizotte’s Sydney 629 Pittwater Rd Dee Why

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17:08:13 :: Metro Theatre :: 624 George St Sydney 9550 3666

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:: KATRINA CLARKE :: ASHLEY S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER NAN MAG NTH AMA :: H ITALHAIC MAR :: HENRY LEUNG AKA CAP

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g g guide gig g

send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com

The Smith Street Band

SATURDAY AUGUST 31 Annandale Hotel

The Smith Street Band + Joyce Manor + Cheap Girls

THURSDAY AUGUST 29

8pm. $30. MONDAY AUGUST 26 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Latin & Jazz Open Mic World Bar, Kings Cross. 7pm. free. Mariachi Mondays - feat: Victor Valdes And Friends The Basement, Circular Quay. 5pm. free. Motown Mondays - feat: Soultrane The White Horse, Surry Hills. 8pm. free. Reggae Monday Civic Underground, Sydney. 10pm. free.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS

Frankie’s World Famous House Band Frankie’s Pizza, Sydney. 9pm. free. Steve Tonge Observer Hotel, The Rocks. 8:30pm. free.

ACOUSTIC/ COUNTRY/BLUES/ FOLK

Alice Terry Venue 505, Surry Hills. 8:30pm. free. Songs On Stage - feat: Helmut Uhlmann + Belinda Robinson + The Benickross

32 :: BRAG :: 527 : 26:08:13

Trio + Natalie Dipsellas + Chris Brookes + Massimo Presti + Simon Li Kelly’s On King, Newtown. 7pm. free.

TUESDAY AUGUST 27 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Old School Funk And Groove Night Venue 505, Surry Hills. 8:30pm. free.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS

Nick Kingswell Orient Hotel, The Rocks. 9pm. free. Rob Henry Observer Hotel, The Rocks. 8:30pm. free.

WEDNESDAY AUGUST 28 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Hump Wednesdays - feat: The Petting Zoo The Little Guy, Glebe. 7pm. free. Lionel Cole

Bidgee Blues Open Mic Afternoon The Home Tavern, Wagga Wagga. 5pm. $5. Pulp Kitchen And Folk Club - feat: Live Rotating Folk Bands Soda Factory, Surry Hills. 5pm. free. Sam Buckingham + Jonathan Devoy + Jake Edgley Lizotte’s, Dee Why. 6:30pm. $10. Songs On Stage - feat: Helmut Uhlmann + Huntley Mitchell + Lee Sullivan The Loft (UTS Loft), Ultimo. 6pm. free.

The White Horse, Surry Hills. 8pm. free. Los Gringos Venue 505, Surry Hills. 8:30pm. $10. World Music Wednesdays feat: El Orquestron The Basement, Circular Quay. 8pm. $5.

ACOUSTIC/ COUNTRY/BLUES/ FOLK

Live Music Thursdays Bar100, The Rocks. 5pm. free. Peter Head Harbourview Hotel, The Rocks. 8pm. free.

JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Fat Freddy’s Drop Enmore Theatre, Newtown. 8pm. $66.60. Natalie Magee + The Gold Project + Marie Louise The Vanguard, Newtown. 8pm. $15. Organ Groove - feat: Dave Goodman + Darren Heinrich + Lionel Cole The White Horse, Surry Hills. 8pm. free. Thandiwe Phoenix Venue 505, Surry Hills. 8:30pm. free.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS

Akumas Kinder + Darkness Reigns + Mandala And Chronic Agincourt Hotel, Sydney. 7pm. $10. Alex Hopkins Open Mic Night Northies Cronulla Hotel, Cronulla. 7:30pm. free. Andy Mammers Australian Hotel And Brewery,

Rouse Hill. 9:30pm. free. Belle & The Bone People, Maples, Jep And Dep & The Boots The Standard, Surry Hills. 8pm. $10. Cash - The Concert - feat: Stuart French + Daniel Thompson & Tamara Stewart Brass Monkey, Cronulla. 7pm. $34.70. Dave White Orient Hotel, The Rocks. 9pm. free. Geoff Rana Duo O’Malleys Hotel, Kings Cross. 9:30pm. free. Heath Burdell Trio Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney. 9:30pm. free. Mandi Jarry Dee Why Hotel, Dee Why. 7pm. free. Nightbreed IV - feat: Alexander Cross + God K + She Falls Down Stairs + Cherax Destructor + Sex Tape DJs FBi Social, Kings Cross. 8pm. $10. Sarah Paton Observer Hotel, The Rocks. 8:30pm. free. Slumberhaze Low 302, Sydney. 8pm. free. Vance Joy Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $16.50. Wildcatz Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney. 8pm. free.

FRIDAY AUGUST 30 ACOUSTIC/ COUNTRY/BLUES/ FOLK

Blues Explosion - feat: Lil’ Fi + The JHD Revival Band + Ali Penney & The Moneymakers The Vanguard, Newtown. 8pm. $23.80. Don McLean + Katherine Britt Enmore Theatre, Newtown. 7pm. $99. Live Music Fridays Bar100, The Rocks. 5pm. free.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS Andrew Dyce Customs House Bar, Sydney. 7pm. free.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS

Chris Stretton Stamford Grand, North Ryde. 5:45pm. free. Dune Rats Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach. 8pm. free. Leon Fallon Observer Hotel, The Rocks. 9:30pm. free. Lindsey Stirling Metro Theatre, Sydney. 7:30pm. $41.10. Snakadaktal Bar On The Hill, Callaghan. 7:30pm. $23.50. Spencer Ray Duo Orient Hotel, The Rocks. 9pm. free. Ultra Series Band Competition Agincourt Hotel, Sydney. 7pm. $15. Uni Bar100 Bar100, The Rocks. 9pm. free. Wheat Fields FBi Social, Kings Cross. 1pm. free.

ACOUSTIC/ COUNTRY/BLUES/ FOLK

All Time Low

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Xxx

pick of the week

Big Scary

g g guide gig g

send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com Andy Mammers Duo Town Hall Hotel, Balmain, Balmain. 8:30pm. free. Big Scary + Courtney Barnett The Factory Theatre, Marrickville. 7:30pm. $20. Black Diamond Hearts Crows Nest Hotel, Crows Nest. 10pm. free. Bounce Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney. 10:30pm. free. Carl Fidler Observer Hotel, The Rocks. 8:30pm. free. Craig Woodward Cock N’ Bull, Sydney. 7pm. free. Dave Phillips O’malleys Hotel, Kings Cross. 8pm. free. Fallon Bros Observer Hotel, The Rocks. 10:30pm. free. Fun Machine World Bar, Kings Cross. 8pm. free. Iron Bark Rock Engadine Tavern, Engadine. 9:30pm. free. Jeremy Neale + Feelings Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 8pm. $12. Joe Echo Dee Why Hotel, Dee Why. 7pm. free. John Vella Chatswood RSL, Chatswood. 5:30pm. free. Lethal Vendetta - feat: Enter 6 + Skulldogory + Abacination And Senile Sircus Agincourt Hotel, Sydney. 7pm. $10. Living Chair Tribute Show Riverstone Bowling Club, Riverstone. 9pm. free. Lowtide - feat: Day Ravies + East River + Black Springs Petersham Bowling Club, Petersham. 8pm. $10. Matt Price Northies Cronulla Hotel, Cronulla. 9pm. free. Max & The Refined Rouges + Invisible Sun + Angel Awake Brass Monkey, Cronulla. 7pm. $14.30. Michael Votano Duo Crows Nest Hotel, Crows Nest. 6:30pm. free. Playwrite + Bhavani + Sam Brittain + DJ Hansom Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills. 6pm. free. Powderfinger Tribute Show Bull And Bush Hotel, Baulkham Hills. 10pm. free. Snakadaktal + Fishing + Moon Holiday Metro Theatre, Sydney. 7pm. $25.70. The Shrooms Kirribilli Hotel, Milsons Point. 8pm. free. Vance Joy Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $16.50. Yes I’m Leaving + Narrow Lands + Milkk + Sour

Cream FBi Social, Kings Cross. 8pm. $10.

JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Alasdair Cameron & Aaron Michael Dual Album Launches - feat: Chuck Yates/James Ryan Duo Venue 505, Surry Hills. 8:30pm. $20. The Building Bridges Festival 2013 - feat: The Rhythm Hunters + Mohsen Soltani + Hazy Cloud & Dirty Sweet Nothings The Standard, Surry Hills. 8pm. $15.

SATURDAY AUGUST 31 ACOUSTIC/ COUNTRY/BLUES/ FOLK Live Music Saturdays Bar100, The Rocks. 4pm. free. Paul Hayward & Friends Town & Country Hotel, St Peters. 3pm. free.

JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Alvin Curran (USA) + Jon Rose SIMA, Seymour Centre, Chippendale. 8:30pm. $30. Bring In The Spring - feat: The Kumpnee + Blue Candy And Soul Benefits Agincourt Hotel, Sydney. 8pm. free. Kinetic Jazz Orchestra + Bruce Cale Venue 505, Surry Hills. 8:30pm. $20.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS

All Time Low Unsw Roundhouse, Kensington. 7pm. $62.70. Altitude Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney. 10:30pm. free. Champagne Jam Open Mic Night Dundas Sports Club, Dundas. 7pm. free. Dave White Duo Northies Cronulla Hotel, Cronulla. 9pm. free. Electric Anthems Trio Paragon Hotel, Sydney. 9:30pm. free. Evie Dean Northies Cronulla Hotel, Cronulla. 5:30pm. free. For Our Hero + Forever Ends Here + Call The Shots

Metro Theatre, Sydney. 5pm. $14. Furnace And The Fundamentals + Conics + Contrakids + Friends DJs Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills. 6pm. free. Geoff Rana Observer Hotel, The Rocks. 9:30pm. free. Hangman, Atlantis Of The Sky, Thraxas!, Event Horizon, Nekrology, DeadLife, Blackened Beneath Agincourt Hotel, Sydney. 12pm. $10. James Scott Observer Hotel, The Rocks. 4:30pm. free. Japandroids Manning Bar, Sydney University. 8pm. $39.10. Jay Parrino Dee Why Hotel, Dee Why. 6:30pm. free. Kid Zeus, Deep Space Supergroop & Adulthood The Standard, Surry Hills. 8pm. $10. KP Australian Hotel And Brewery, Rouse Hill. 10pm. free. Michael McGlynn Kirribilli Hotel, Milsons Point. 9:30pm. free. Passerine - feat: Triforce + This Mess + Nick Lynar Spectrum, Darlinghurst. 8pm. free. Riz Hallowes Abbott’s Hotel, Sydney. 7:30pm. free. Riz Hallowes Coogee Bay Hotel, Coogee. 9pm. free. Rob Henry Observer Hotel, The Rocks. 8:30pm. free. Rock Chick Ent. Presents “Perplexus” - feat: Dead Life + Thraxas + Atlantis Of The Sky + Adriaan + Nekrology And Blackened Beneath Agincourt Hotel, Sydney. 12pm. $10. Skyscraper Engadine Tavern, Engadine. 9:30pm. free. Sons Of Mercury Crows Nest Hotel, Crows Nest. 10pm. free. Stormcellar The Royal Hotel, Bondi. 8:30pm. free. Swing Shift - Cold Chisel Show Oatley Hotel, Oatley. 8:30pm. free. The Buzz Club #3 - feat: The Dunhill Blues + Carrie Phillis & The Downtown Three + The Walk On By + The Escapes Hermann’s Bar, Darlington. 8pm. $15. The Paper Kites Metro Theatre, Sydney. 7pm. $22. The Smith Street Band + Joyce Manor + Cheap Girls The Annandale Hotel,

The Paper Kites

Annandale. 8pm. $30. Wendy Matthews - feat: Joel Leffler Brass Monkey, Cronulla. 7pm. $43.90.

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 1 INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS Alex Hopkins Woolloomooloo Bay Hotel, Woolloomooloo. 4pm. free. Dan Spillane Northies Cronulla Hotel, Cronulla. 2pm. free.

Elevation U2 Acoustic Show Orient Hotel, The Rocks. 4:30pm. free. Rocking Chair & Shotgun Agincourt Hotel, Sydney. 7pm. $10. Rudefinger - feat: Wynk Agincourt Hotel, Sydney. 2pm. $5. Wendy Matthews - feat: Nikita Rolleston Brass Monkey, Cronulla. 7pm. $43.90.

ACOUSTIC/ COUNTRY/BLUES/ FOLK Acoustic Sets - feat: Rick Oatley Hotel, Oatley. 2pm. free.

Chucks Wagon Botany View Hotel, Newtown. 7pm. free. Intimate Sessions Paragon Hotel, Sydney. 6pm. free. Little Sundays - feat: Stephanie Grace The Little Guy, Glebe. 7pm. free. Live Music Sundays Bar100, The Rocks. 1pm. free. Peter Head Harbourview Hotel, The Rocks. 4pm. free. Rocking Chair & Shotgun Valve Bar, Tempe. 7pm. $10. Satellite V Marrickville Bowls Club, Marrickville. 4:30pm. free.

tue

27 Aug

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

wed

28 Aug

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

thu

29 Aug

(9:30PM - 12:30AM)

fri

30 Aug

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

(9:30PM - 1:30AM)

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

sat

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

Aug

SATURDAY NIGHT

(9:30PM - 12:30AM)

sun

01 Sep

SUNDAY NIGHT

(8:30PM - 12:00AM)

Japandroids

thebrag.com

BRAG :: 527 :: 26:08:13 :: 33

gig picks

up all night out all week... Don McLean + Katherine Britt Enmore Theatre, Newtown. 7pm. $99.

Dune Rats

Snakadaktal

Big Scary + Courtney Barnett The Factory Theatre, Marrickville. 7:30pm. $20. Jeremy Neale + Feelings Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 8pm. $12. Snakadaktal + Fishing + Moon Holiday Metro Theatre, Sydney. 7pm. $25.70. Vance Joy Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $16.50. Yes I’m Leaving + Narrow Lands + Milkk + Sour Cream FBi Social, Kings Cross. 8pm. $10.

WEDNESDAY AUGUST 28

Akumas Kinder + Darkness Reigns + Mandala And Chronic Agincourt Hotel, Sydney. 7pm. $10.

Dune Rats Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach. 8pm. Free.

Nightbreed IV - Feat: Alexander Cross + God K + She Falls Down Stairs + Cherax Destructor + Sex Tape DJs FBi Social, Kings Cross. 8pm. $10.

Wheat Fields FBi Social, Kings Cross. 1pm. Free.

THURSDAY AUGUST 29 Fat Freddy’s Drop Enmore Theatre, Newtown. 8pm. $66.60. Natalie Magee + The Gold Project + Marie Louise The Vanguard, Newtown. 8pm. $15.

Vance Joy Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $16.50.

FRIDAY AUGUST 30 Blues Explosion - Feat: Lil’ Fi + The JHD Revival Band + Ali Penney & The Moneymakers The Vanguard, Newtown. 8pm. $23.80.

The Building Bridges Festival 2013 - Feat: The Rhythm Hunters + Mohsen Soltani + Hazy Cloud & Dirty Sweet Nothings The Standard, Surry Hills. 8pm. $15.

SATURDAY AUGUST 31 Alvin Curran (USA) + Jon Rose SIMA, Seymour Centre, Chippendale. 8:30pm. $30. All Time Low UNSW Roundhouse, Kensington. 7pm. $62.70. For Our Hero + Forever Ends Here + Call The Shots Metro Theatre, Sydney. 5pm. $14.

Japandroids Manning Bar, Sydney University. 8pm. $39.10. The Buzz Club #3 - Feat: The Dunhill Blues + Carrie Phillis & The Downtown Three + The Walk On By + The Escapes Hermann’s Bar, Darlington. 8pm. $15. The Paper Kites Metro Theatre, Sydney. 7pm. $22.

Vance Joy

WED 28th AUGUST

LUNCH BREAK: WHEAT FIELDS 1PM // FREE

THURS 29TH AUGUST

AC PRESENTS NIGHTBREED IV: ALEXANDER CROSS (SINGLE LAUNCH) + GOD K + SHE FALLS DOWN STAIRS + CHERAX DESTRUCTOR + SEX TAPE DJ 8PM // $10

FRI 30th AUGUST

YES I’M LEAVING + NARROW LANDS + MILKK + SOUR CREAM 8PM // $10

www.fbisocial.com 34 :: BRAG :: 527 : 26:08:13

SAT 31st AUGUST

WHEAT FIELDS + BAD VALLEY + THE CUPCAKE CONSPIRACY 8PM // $10

STAGGMAN HANDS UP! DJS & CLOCKWERK

11:30PM // FREE

level 2, kings cross hotel thebrag.com

BRAG’s guide to dance, hip hop and club culture

brag beats

dance music news club, dance and hip hop in brief...with Chris Honnery

five things WITH

Tornado Wallace

PICNIC FT TORNADO WALLACE

Melbourne’s Lewie Day, who plies his trade as Tornado Wallace, will headline a Picnic warehouse party at a secret location this Saturday. Wallace is held in high regard by deep house and disco aficionados worldwide, having chalked up releases on labels like Delusions Of Grandeur and Instruments Of Rapture that tread the line between house, Detroit techno and disco. Day has also remixed heavy hitters such as Matthew Dear, Recloose and Session Victim’s Matthias Reiling, and recently dropped a 12” on Tim Sweeney’s Beats In Space imprint. Day’s increasing profile on the world stage has led to gigs at some of Europe’s most prestigious venues, including Plastic People in London, Berlin’s Watergate and Space Ibiza. Presale tickets are available for $25, and as this is a BYO party there will be no overpriced drinks to eat into your party budget.

JONTI

CIRCO LOCO

The lineup for Finely Tuned’s annual Circo Loco Halloween event has been announced, with the international triumvirate of Matthias Tanzmann, Âme and Francesca Lombardo topping the bill. Drawing their moniker from the French word for ‘soul’, German duo Âme burst onto the mainstream radar with the Ibiza anthem ‘Rej’ in ’06, the start of a succession of crossover cuts such as ‘Where We At?’ and a remix of Rodamaal’s ‘Insomnia’ on Buzzin’ Fly. Âme oversee the Innervisions record label alongside Dixon, and have been integral in the deep house renaissance while also exploring techno and ambient influences in their productions and DJ sets. Most recently Frank Wiedemann, one-half of Âme, released one of the unexpected anthems of the year in ‘Howling’, an acoustic ballad performed with vocalist/ guitarist Ry Cuming. Dixon closed his Boiler Room set with the track, which also received a Âme remix. Meanwhile Tanzmann has been a Sydney favourite since he introduced himself to local clubbers in no uncertain terms at Lost Baggage many moons ago, and has an

ardent following worldwide thanks to regular appearances at notorious Ibiza day club DC10. Of the three headliners, Lombardo represents the next generation of DJs, but has previously acquainted himself with Sydneysiders through a performance at a past Rebel Rave gig. The revelry commences midday at the Greenwood Hotel on Saturday November 2, with presale tickets available online (first release tickets have already sold out).

SUMMER REMIXED

A Donna Summer remix album entitled Love To Love You Donna will be released in October through Verve Records. The compilation will include Italian pioneer Giorgio Moroder’s remix of Summer’s disco hit ‘Love To Love You Baby’, which according to Giorgio was only completed earlier this month. Along with Moroder’s recent effort, the compilation will feature Hot Chip’s take on ‘Sunset People’, Frankie Knuckles’ and Eric Kupper’s remix of ‘Hot Stuff’, and Chromeo and Oliver’s remix of ‘Love Is In Control (Finger On The Trigger)’.

Hiatus Kaiyote

Growing Up I grew up in South Africa and to be 1. honest, I wasn’t introduced to that much music growing up, as my parents weren’t all that musical. When I arrived in Australia, I started exploring music, as my older brother (Lee from Astral People) started getting into some bands like Weezer and Sonic Youth. From there we later discovered DJ Shadow and instrumental hip hop as a whole, which led to the discovery of J Dilla and Madlib. Acts like Beastie Boys and Kraftwerk also very much helped shape my sound in my later teen years. Inspirations ‘Donuts’ by J Dilla introduced me to the 2. Stones Throw discography, which resulted in me just trying to make hip hop beats, like so many other kids at the time. Brian Wilson’s Smile is my benchmark album; to me nothing will ever come close to the masterpiece that is Smile. Locally I’ve been lucky enough to work with my two biggest local influences in Gotye and The Avalanches – both have helped shaped what I do quite extensively. Your Crew My brother was definitely the first person 3. who got me into music and we have grown together in our music discovery. He’s now my manager, so we’ve always kept things really close. When I was in Sherlock’s Daughter, the guys in that band introduced me to loads of really great kraut stuff like Neu! and Faust.

thebrag.com

Since Astral People formed, I ended up exploring a lot more techno and house via the acts they’ve toured like Night Slugs and Omar-S. The Music You Make I make generally trippy upbeat beat4. based pop music. Kinda like Flying Lotus with Beach Boys harmonies and chords. I like a lot of funk and mid-’90s stuff like Beck, Missy Elliot, Busta Rhymes. That element pops up in there a lot. Music, Right Here, Right Now The music scene in Sydney is the most 5. exciting it’s ever been. Really interesting and fun music is making its way to the stage, to the radio and to the general public. I’ve been able to see firsthand everything that Astral People has produced here (as my brother is involved and being part of the roster), and it’s really meaningful to a lot of people. The obstacles I think are for artists to have their own voice and story. The industry doesn’t promote that ideal as much as it should but I think it’s important. What: Astral People presents OutsideIn Festival With: Zomby, Freddie Gibbs, BadBadNotGood, Objekt, Rainbow Chan, Elizabeth Rose and more Where: Factory Theatre When: Saturday September 21

HIATUS KAIYOTE

After a lengthy period of international touring that yielded performances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, support slots for Common and Erykah Badu in the US, and spots at European festivals like Worldwide and Dour, Melbourne four-piece Hiatus Kaiyote return home to play a series of shows, including one at The Standard on Saturday October 26. Formed in mid-2011, Hiatus Kaiyote released their debut, self-produced album Tawk Tomahawk last year, a remix album featuring rewords by Mark de Clive-Lowe, Shafiq Husayn (Sa-Ra Creative Partners), MFP and Anthony Valadez. Described as “more than darlings of just the beat and hip hop/neo soul scenes,” the band have attracted comparisons to The Roots and Little Dragon, and have performed alongside Taylor McFerrin, Warp’s Clark, Harmonic 313 and Brainfeeder’s Lapalux.

BRAG :: 527 :: 26:08:13 :: 35

dance music news

free stuff

club, dance and hip hop in brief...with Chris Honnery

email: freestuff@thebrag.com

he said she said WITH

Jonti

JEROME ISMA-AE

erome Isma-Ae is one of Germany’s (and the world’s) most distinguished house DJs and producers. The one-man act, wise beyond his years, began making his own sounds at age 12; and later, at 18 – an age that saw most of us take our first legal sip of cheap wine – IsmaAe was releasing his first 12”. BRAG caught up with him to nab the low-down. Where did you grow up and what was your childhood like? In Munich, I went to a musicalbased elementary school. This is where it all started. When I was 12 I played the bass in a heavy metal band. Later, I switched to electronic music. I signed my first record deal with a techno label when I was 18. What’s inspired the music you make? Soundtracks, other DJs’ and producers’ sets – I listen to all kinds of music to find inspiration. And of course the biggest inspiration is life.

Who else is in your crew? I’m a one-man show, but I have some collaborations with Ilan Bluestone, Mark Sixma, Justin Michael and many more producers. Tell us a little about the music you make, how it sounds, what it’s about. It’s deep, dark, driving and uplifting. People say I take them on a journey with my music. What was the most recent record you bought? I get most stuff via promo. But the last mp3 I bought was a Toolroom compilation. How do you feel about the music out there right now? There is a tonne of shitty music on the market at the moment. It’s hard to find good tracks. Everything sounds the same somehow. But since I’m collaborating with different producers, we are working on something different and unique. Where: Marquee at The Star When: Saturday August 31

ASTRAL PEOPLE

Ain’t no party like a Liz Lemon party. Except, maybe, an Astral People party. The management and touring company is so excited about their second anniversary that they’ve brought together the best acts in their musical family for the shebang at Goodgod Small Club this Saturday August 31. Playing on the night will be Stones Throw’s Jonti and friends, plus R&B duo Collarbones and plenty more. Our gift? We’re sending some BRAG readers along to light up the dancefloor and eat all the cake. For the chance to win a double pass, email freestuff@thebrag.com and tell us the best birthday present you’ve ever received.

SECOND FRONT

Beatmakers Suburban Dark are rinsing out Civic Underground’s speakers this Saturday August 31 for the launch of their album, Second Front. Following up ‘Skeletonne’, their much-praised collaboration with Thundamentals’ Jeswon, Suburban Dark will head a massive lineup for the mother of all hip hop parties – on hand will be Tuka, Ellesquire, P.Smurf, Rapaport, Tenth Dan, Mute, Billie Rose, Mikoen and Elemont. We have two double passes to give away – just email freestuff@thebrag.com and tell us why your suburb is Sydney’s best suburb, dagnammit.

Xxx

SANDER VAN DOORN

Having previously toured our shores for last year’s Stereosonic, Dutchman Sander van Doorn will play at Marquee on Sunday October 6. The latest off the production line of superstar Dutch DJs, van Doorn has remixed stadium bands such as The Killers and Depeche Mode, and notched up his own hit singles such as ‘Nothing Inside’ (which has been signed to Jay Z’s Roc Nation), the club stonker ‘Joyenergizer’, ‘Close My Eyes’ with Robbie Williams and recent Beatport top-tenner ‘Neon’.

CHIC

In addition to performing in the great outdoors of a world heritage site at the Subsonic Music Festival, held at Barrington Tops a few hours north of Sydney, Nile Rodgers and his band Chic will also perform at the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall on Saturday December 7. Chic were a constant presence in the pop charts from 1977-1980, cementing their position as disco deities with an unrivalled run of hits such as ‘Good Times’, ‘I Want Your Love‘,

‘Everybody Dance’ – brilliantly utilised by Spike Lee in his underrated masterpiece Summer Of Sam – and ‘Le Freak’. After Chic, Rodgers went on to even bigger things as a top flight producer and guitarist, working on David Bowie’s Let’s Dance and Madonna’s Like A Virgin, among a plethora of other projects. Fresh from experiencing a renaissance after turning his attention to Daft Punk on their ubiquitous single ‘Get Lucky’, Rodgers now brings Chic to Sydney for the Australian summer.

OLAFUR ARNALDS

Critically lauded Icelandic musician, composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer Ólafur Arnalds will perform two shows at The Basement on Thursday September 19 and Friday September 20. One half of techno duo Kiasmos, Arnalds is best known for his output as a composer of beautiful soundscapes cinematic. He’s released three albums including most recent LP, For Now I Am Winter, which features Arnalds working with a vocalist for the first time, Arnór Dan Arnarson (member of the Icelandic band Agent Fresco). “Incorporating vocals and especially the lyrics was a challenge for me. Being an instrumental artist, there’s this thing that I really like about the music being open to interpretation. There was a big challenge to balance [the lyrics] and not tell people too much, so we tried to treat the vocal as just another instrument.”

JUS-ED

The High Flyers party brand celebrates its 13th birthday on Saturday October 27 with an afternoon boat cruise on Sydney Harbour headlined by techno icon Carl Cox. The perennially smiling Englishman has a contagious joie de vivre that’s about as far removed from his cameo role as an austere nightclub owner in Human Traffic as one could imagine. He has lost not of his ability to move a dancefloor over his many years in the game. When he’s not touring, Cox enjoys the simple pleasures of being a resident of Frankston, a town just south of Melbourne that he adores because “it is seriously unassuming”. As a result of his geographic proximity to Sydney, Cox has been a regular in our clubs over the years, playing everywhere from Big Day Out to Sydney Mardi Gras. This time around, Cox will be throwing down aboard the Bella Vista, which sets sail at midday and returns at 5pm. However, for those wanting to party into the night, Cox will also be playing a three-hour set at the after party at the Metro Theatre, which will run until 2am. Tickets go on sale this Wednesday August 28.

36 :: BRAG :: 527 :: 26:08:13

MARCOS CABRAL

Brooklyn native Marcos Cabral will play at Icebergs on Sunday September 15 courtesy of Picnic and Pulse Radio. Cabral has been

churning out disco-tinged house since his first release as Runaway with studio buddy Jacques Renault back in 2002. The pair has since released over a dozen records on labels like Mule Musiq and Rekids, which put out the anthemic ‘Brooklyn Club Jam’ – a cut that still does the business on dancefloors five years on from its original release. As a solo producer, Cabral has released on imprints like Trapez Ltd and Ron Morelli’s L.I.E.S., which recently released his debut album False Memories. False Memories is a double LP collection of Cabral’s early productions from between 1998 and 2000, which explore a raw techno sound recorded to cassette with primitive editing software and a Roland MC-303, showcasing a fascinating experimental side of his work. “Listening to these tracks now, I have a really vague memory of making them, and feel that their naive nature and the happy accidents that happened here are pretty exciting to listen to,” Cabral said. The Icebergs bash will run from 4-10pm, with only 100 tickets available for the event. thebrag.com

Ólafur Arnalds photo by Marino Thorlacius

HIGH FLYERS FT CARL COX

The force behind the NY-based Underground Quality banner, house maestro DJ Jus-Ed headlines S.A.S.H at the Abercrombie this Sunday September 1. Having DJ’d since the ’80s and spun at many of the best clubs in the world – Fabric, Berghain/Panorama Bar, you know the score – Jus-Ed is a tastemaker in the underground club milieu, pushing rising talents such as Nina Kraviz, Levon Vincent and Russian producer Anton Zap through his label and his Underground Quality radio show, available for streaming online via myhouseyourhouse.net. Jus-Ed is renowned for making luscious deep house, though the man himself describes his brand of music as travelling “straight line down the middle between house music and techno”.

BRAG :: 527 :: 26:08:13 :: 37

Horrorshow Storming The Charts By Lachlan Kanoniuk

t’s Tuesday morning when Solo, the MC half of Sydney hip hop outfit Horrorshow, answers the phone from a quiet nook in his home city. The preceding weekend brought the news that King Amongst Many, their first album since 2009’s Inside Story, had debuted at number two on the ARIA charts. Solo projects a mix of pride and relief – not so much in regards to the album’s chart positioning, but for the tremendous response from the duo’s evergrowing fan base after such a long wait. “These things don’t always have a clear start date, but we started thinking about the record as soon as we finished the last one – which was back in October 2009,” Solo says. “That was the early stages of throwing ideas around about the kind of record that we wanted to make. But there are a couple of tracks that date back to that time, when there was an original sketch of a beat kicking around. That’s when some of the early ideas started to take shape. We’ve been bunkered down pretty hard in the past year or so working on it in amongst touring, then doubly hard in the past six months. That was the end of a process that kicked off a few years ago.”

“I think what we’re starting to see happen is that our predecessors were people that grew up on classic American rap … [Now there’s] such a strong back catalogue of Australian releases, and for us as younger dudes listening to that stuff, it gives us more tradition to build upon and a greater sense of fl uency. There’s not that many barriers to overcome to feel comfortable being Australian and making hip hop. We’re in an environment where we are beyond that”. As for the high charting of King Amongst Many, Solo is philosophical when it comes to what it means for Horrorshow and the broader hip hop community. “It’s a funny thing. Me and Adit were chatting about it last week, where we might land on the chart and how we could be as proactive as we could getting people to buy the album. We had a pretty funny moment where we realised it was such a strange conversation to be having … But it’s like [Urthboy] said in one of his tweets, a number is just a number and it’s never going to capture the full worth of what we have going on here.” With: Home Brew, Jimblah Where: Metro Theatre (all ages) When: Friday September 20 And: King Amongst Many out now through Elefant Traks

Horrorshow photo by Chris Frape

That three-and-a-half-year-long process imbued the record with tremendous variety and depth – qualities that didn’t always come easy for Solo and beatmaker Adit. “We’ve definitely ran the gamut, been through plenty of ups and downs in the process of getting this record ready. There were times when we were really on a roll, and there were times when the writing process wasn’t coming to me as quickly as I wanted. The last month or two, having wrapped up the record – which was itself a pretty crazy race to the finish … it was pretty hectic. Then the month since then, we’ve been trying to channel the energy that’s out there. There’s certainly been a crazy amount of anticipation from our listeners, and from us. We just got to the point where we really needed to get it out there in the world to see what people make of it. There were all sorts of emotions involved in the process.”

King Amongst Many lands in yet another purple patch for local hip hop, with 2013 set to be one of its fi nest years yet. “It’s defi nitely an interesting time for the music, people are pushing it in different directions,” says Solo. “The last however many years, we’ve seen an explosion of the hip hop scene that keeps on getting bigger and bigger. Artists are getting more opportunities … There’s more food on the table, so to speak, and there are more people getting a seat at that table. There are more voices emerging, which is great.”

Ryan Hemsworth No Sleep Til Berlin By Alasdair Duncan

anadian beatmaker Ryan Hemsworth grew up like any kid in the suburbs with a penchant for music – as soon as he worked out how, he was recording himself singing and playing guitar in his bedroomcum-DIY-studio. Soon enough he discovered sampling, and has never turned back: after six EPs, including latest release Still Awake, he’s attracted the attention of those in the know. Hemsworth has dropped unofficial remixes of Grimes, Frank Ocean and Danny Brown, and is fast becoming a triple j favourite. Over the upcoming European winter, Hemsworth is headed to the grimiest clubs in Berlin, Paris and London – but in the meantime, he’s dropping into Australia on a co-headline tour with compatriot Kaytranada. The BRAG’s Alasdair Duncan caught up with Hemsworth to talk about his quiet hometown, the touring lifestyle, and why he’s reluctant to drop his own tracks into club sets. Your Still Awake EP has been out for a few months now – how has the response been so far? Pretty awesome. It was a bit of an impulsive thing, I just wanted to share this new, different stuff I’d been working on. Less vocal samples and all that, just a lot more movie scoresounding. I wasn’t expecting many people to be into it but it’s been super positive, from the reviews to a few people just hitting me up saying it made them cry which is, like, too surreal to me.

Can you tell me how you first got into making electronic music, and what your first experiments with electronic gear were like? I’ve been recording myself since I was like 15, but I was playing guitar and kind of making shitty rock at that time. But I was always tweaking things, editing pieces of my recordings. Until 38 :: BRAG :: 527 :: 26:08:13

Halifax seems to be a pretty quiet place – is it a particularly nurturing environment for a young electronic musician? Not so much, but it is a nice place no doubt. I had to move away and start doing shows in other cities to really gain anyone’s attention in Halifax. Kind of a small city mentality. All my family is still there though; it’s great whenever I can go back. Who are some of the artists you really love, or who inspire you? Cornelius, Kanye, Pharrell, Air, Mike Will, Darkchild. When it comes to making tracks, how do you like to work? Do you start with rhythms or melodies, or let the gear lead the way? I usually have just a spark of an idea, or nothing at all. It’s just trial and error, I guess. I try a synth, doesn’t sound good, try something else, make a mess and then cut it down and structure it, continue building. I use lots of samples so it’s a lot of just going through my iTunes and stuff while creating. Listening while creating. A while back, you mentioned that your people were reaching out to Drake’s about a possible collaboration – are you keen to get into R&B production? Yeah, for sure, working with singers is exciting. It’s such a crazy collaboration for someone like myself who has come from such a one-sided musical background, never letting anyone else in really. To work with a great singer is just super refreshing and keeps you on your toes. The music you make is very reflective, and even a little sad – is it a challenge working that into a DJ set for a party crowd? Yeah – that’s why I sometimes don’t want to even play a lot of my own music at shows because I feel like people might not be super pumped, you know, on a Friday night at the club or whatever. I try now to play the songs in different ways, that stay true to their original sound but have more

rhythm or are more upbeat. Just ways of tricking people into dancing, if it works.

game sounds and R&B and throwback pop jams and sweating, probably.

You’ll be playing a show at Chinese Laundry at the end of August – what can we expect from that? My music and rap and weird noises and video

What: Ryan Hemsworth and Kaytranada Where: Chinese Laundry When: Saturday August 31

thebrag.com

Ryan Hemsworth by Jake Churchill

This has been a very big year for you, especially in terms of all the touring – has it been a big adjustment for you personally? Yeah, for sure. Being on the road constantly is just as tough as every artist has ever made it sound, and I was always like, “Oh, suck it up, you’re living the dream” – but it is rough some days! Of course, it really is a dream, I try to never lose sight of that. It takes adjusting to the fact that you get to meet amazing, beautiful, funny, awesome people every day and then have to say goodbye within 12 hours and move on to the next place. I can’t imagine how people like Diplo or someone must feel, just being on the road eternally.

I started looping, and sampling myself, and throwing in samples from other songs, then I really got addicted to that type of songwriting. Structuring music like puzzle pieces. Now I do everything on my laptop, it’s fun; I’m already addicted to being on the computer so this is just adding fuel to the fire.

snap

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Taking applications September 1 - November 1 aftrs.edu.au/awardcourses *The Hollywood Reporter

BRAG :: 527 :: 26:08:13 :: 39

club guide g send your listings to : clubguide@thebrag.com

Ryan Hemsworth

Hemsworth_by_Jake_Churchill_4_web.tif

club pick of the week

Rewind - feat: Resident DJs Sapphire Lounge, Potts Point. 9pm. free. Stereosonic Lauch Party feat: Joel Fletcher + Troy T + DJ Comp Contestants Australian Hotel And Brewery, Rouse Hill. 9pm. free. Take Over Thursday - feat: Resident DJs Trademark Hotel, Potts Point. 9pm. $10

John Course

FRIDAY AUGUST 30 HIP HOP & R&B

Izzy N The Profit - feat: Apollo Creed + Bayside Wreckers + DJ Maniak + More Agincourt Hotel, Sydney. 9pm. $10. Low The Argyle, The Rocks. 12am. free. Playwrite + Bhavani + Sam Brittain + DJ Hansom Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills. 6pm. free. Show Lo Sydney Entertainment Centre, Darling Harbour. 8pm. $68.

SATURDAY AUGUST 31 Chinese Laundry

Ryan Hemsworth & Kaytranada + Spenda-C + U-Khan + Astrix + Hannah Gibbs + Murray Lake + Magic Bird + Roof + Fingers + GG Margee + Ra Bazaar 9pm. $20. TUESDAY AUGUST 27 CLUB NIGHTS

Chu - feat: Various World Bar, Kings Cross. 7:30pm. $5. Coyote Tuesday - feat: Resident DJs Trademark Hotel, Potts Point. 9pm. free. I Love Goon - feat: Resident DJs Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney. 7pm. free. Rumba Motel Salsa - feat: DJ Willie Sabor The Establishment, Sydney. 8pm. free.

WEDNESDAY AUGUST 28 HIP HOP & R&B

Sietta The Vanguard, Newtown. 8pm. $13.80. The Wall - feat: Resident DJs World Bar, Kings Cross. 8pm. $5.

CLUB NIGHTS

Garbage 90s Night - feat:

40 :: BRAG :: 527 : 26:08:13

Garbage DJs Lewisham Hotel, Lewisham. 7pm. free. Kit Wednesdays - feat: Resident DJs Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross. 10pm. free. Le’ Humpdaze - feat: Jaykay Mistery + Paulux Orion + Brendon Meow-Sum + Stfp & Special Guests Le’ Cartel, Darlinghurst. 6pm. free. Salsa - feat: Resident DJs Ivy Bar/lounge, Sydney. 8pm. free. The Supper Club - feat: Resident DJs Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross. 10pm. free. The Wall - feat: Various World Bar, Kings Cross. 8pm. free. Whip It Wednesdays - feat: DJs Camo + Snillum + Jaimie Lyn Whaat Club, Kings Cross. 9pm. free.

THURSDAY AUGUST 29 CLUB NIGHTS

Balmain Blitz - feat: Various Bridge Hotel, Rozelle. 7pm. free. Chakra Thursdays - feat:

Robust + Brizz Whaat Club, Kings Cross. 9:30pm. free. Dip Hop - feat: Levins And Guests Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 8pm. free. Hot Damn - feat: Hot Damn DJs The Exchange Hotel, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $15. Kit & Kaboodle - feat: Resident DJs Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross. 10pm. free. Miami Nights - feat: Jay-J + Husky + Liam Sampras + Tom Kelly Goldfish, Kings Cross. 9pm. free. Naked (Onesie World Record Attempt) - feat: DJ Absynth + DJ Kiittenx Space, Sydney. 8pm. free. OPM/Urban Agent feat. Pinky Tang Marquee At The Star, Pyrmont. 10pm. $25. Pool Club Thursdays - feat: Resident DJs Ivy Bar/lounge, Sydney. 5pm. free. Propaganda - feat: Gillex + DJ Moody World Bar, Kings Cross. 9pm. $10. Propaganda - feat: Urby + Mush + Shag + Tom Ballard World Bar, Kings Cross. 9pm. $5.

CLUB NIGHTS

$5 @ 5 On Fridays - feat: Resident DJs Jacksons On George, Sydney. 5pm. free. Alto Tango - feat: Resident DJs Zeta Bar, Sydney. 6pm. free. Clicks & Whistles + Doctor Werewolf + Empress Yoy + Big Deal Gillespie Chinese Laundry, Sydney. 10pm. $20. El’Circo - feat: Resident Circus Act Performers Slide Lounge, Darlinghurst. 7pm. $109. Factory Fridays - feat: Resident DJs Soda Factory, Surry Hills. 5pm. free. Fridays - feat: Resident DJs Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross. 10pm. free. Kronic Marquee At The Star, Pyrmont. 10pm. $20. Mashed Fridays - feat: DJs Ric C & Jason K Oatley Hotel, Oatley. 8pm. free. Mum - feat: Mum DJs World Bar, Kings Cross. 8pm. $10. Soho Fridays - feat: Kronic + Skinny + Zannon Rocco + Fingers + Pat Ward Soho Bar & Lounge, Potts Point. 9pm. free. Something Wicked - feat: Audio Trash + Harper + Robustt + Aydos + Oh Dear Candy’s Apartment, Potts Point. 8pm. free. TGIF - feat: Resident DJs Trademark Hotel, Potts Point. 10pm. free. The Guestlist - feat: Various Home Nightclub, Darling Harbour. 9pm. $15. Unwind Fridays - feat: DJ Greg Summerfield Omega Lounge, Sydney. 5:30pm. free.

CLUB NIGHTS

After Dark - feat: Resident DJs Whaat Club, Kings Cross. 8pm. $15. Argyle Saturdays - feat: Resident DJs The Argyle, The Rocks. 5pm. free. Astral People’s 2nd Birthday - feat: Jonti + Collarbones + Otologic + Tuff Sherm + Alba + Bon Chat Bon Rat + Mike Who + Ben Fester + Astral DJs Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 9pm. $20. FBi Hands Up! - feat: DJ Clockwerk + Special Friends With Benefits FBi Social, Kings Cross. 11:30pm. free. Homemade Saturdays feat: Resident DJs Home Nightclub, Darling Harbour. 9pm. $25. Jacksons Saturdays - feat: Resident DJs Jacksons On George, Sydney. 9pm. free. Jerome Isma-Ae Marquee At The Star, Pyrmont. 10pm. $30. Masif Saturdays Vs. Hardventure feat. Tuneboy Space, Sydney. 10pm. $30. Pacha Sydney W/ John Course And Denzal Park + Tigerlily + Ben Morris + Matt Nugent + Fingers + Devola + Dylan Sanders + Hansom + Pablo Calamari + Kaiser + Here’s Trouble + E-Cats + Trent Rackus + Stu Turner + Gmod Ivy Bar/lounge, Sydney. 8:30pm. $35. Rezerection - feat: UltraSonic + DJ MC Mallorca Lee The Hi-Fi, Moore Park. 9pm. $91.70. Ryan Hemsworth, Kaytranada + Spenda-C + U-Khan + Astrix + Hannah Gibbs + Murray Lake + Magic Bird + Roof + Fingers + GG Margee + Ra Bazaar Chinese Laundry, Sydney. 9pm. $20. Skybar Saturdays - feat:

Resident DJ The Watershed Hotel, Sydney. 9:30pm. $20. Soda Saturdays - feat: Resident DJs Playing Disco And Funk Soda Factory, Surry Hills. 5pm. free. The Suite - feat: Resident DJs Sapphire Lounge, Potts Point. 8pm. free.

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 1 CLUB NIGHTS

Balade Sundays - feat: Aykay Mistery + Paulux Orion + STFP + Cheatz & Special Guests Le’ Cartel, Darlinghurst. 3pm. free. Beresford Sundays - feat: Resident DJs Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills. 3pm. free. Easy Sundays - feat: Resident DJs Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross. 10pm. free. Masif Saturdays Space, Sydney. 10pm. Random Soul - feat: Yogi & Husky The Argyle, The Rocks. 6pm. free. S.A.S.H Sundays - feat: Jus-Ed The Abercrombie, Broadway. 2pm. $10. Soup Kitchen - feat: The Soup Kitchen DJs World Bar, Kings Cross. 7pm. free. Spice After Hours - feat: Steven Sullivan + Murat Kilic And Guests The Spice Cellar, Sydney. 4am. $20. Sunday @ Gay Bar - feat: Resident DJ The Gay Bar, Darlinghurst. 3pm. free. Sunday Sessions - feat: DJ Tone Oatley Hotel, Oatley. 7pm. free.

SATURDAY AUGUST 31 HIP HOP & R&B

Suburban Dark ‘Second Front’ Album Launch - feat: Jeswon + Tuka + Ellesquire + P.Smurf + Rapaport + Tenth Dan + Mute + Billie Rose + Mikoen & Elemont + Deadbeat & Hazy + Tenth Dan & Grub + Moonbase Commander + Roleo + Laxe And DJs Migz & Juzlo Civic Underground, Sydney. 9pm. $13.30.

Doctor Werewolf

thebrag.com

club picks p

send your listings to : clubguide@thebrag.com

WEDNESDAY AUGUST 28 Sietta The Vanguard, Newtown. 8pm. $13.80.

FRIDAY AUGUST 30

Rezerection - Feat: Ultra-Sonic + DJ MC Mallorca Lee The Hi-Fi, Moore Park. 9pm. $91.70.

Clicks & Whistles + Doctor Werewolf + Empress Yoy + Big Deal Gillespie Chinese Laundry, Sydney. 10pm. $20.

Ryan Hemsworth, Kaytranada + Spenda-C + U-Khan + Astrix + Hannah Gibbs + Murray Lake + Magic Bird + Roof + Fingers + GG Margee + Ra Bazaar Chinese Laundry, Sydney. 9pm. $20.

Kronic Marquee At The Star, Pyrmont. 10pm. $20.

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 1

SATURDAY AUGUST 31

S.A.S.H Sundays - feat: Jus-Ed The Abercrombie, Broadway. 2pm. $10.

Suburban Dark ‘Second Front’ Album Launch - Feat: Jeswon + Tuka + Ellesquire + P.Smurf + Rapaport + Tenth Dan + Mute + Billie Rose + Mikoen & Elemont + Deadbeat & Hazy + Tenth Dan & Grub + Moonbase Commander + Roleo + Laxe And DJs Migz & Juzlo Civic Underground, Sydney. 9pm. $13.30. Astral People’s 2nd Birthday - Feat: Jonti + Collarbones + Otologic + Tuff Sherm + Alba + Bon Chat Bon Rat + Mike Who + Ben Fester + Astral DJs Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 9pm. $20.

Peter Van Hoesen

Masif Saturdays Vs. Hardventure Feat. Tuneboy Space, Sydney. 10pm. $30.

OPM/Urban Agent Feat. Pinky Tang Marquee At The Star, Pyrmont. 10pm. $25.

Show Lo Sydney Entertainment Centre, Darling Harbour. 8pm. $68.

Underground Dance And Electronica with Chris Honnery

Jerome Isma-Ae Marquee At The Star, Pyrmont. 10pm. $30.

Pacha Sydney W/ John Course And Denzal Park + Tigerlily + Ben Morris + Matt Nugent + Fingers + Devola + Dylan Sanders + Hansom + Pablo Calamari + Kaiser + Here’s Trouble + E-Cats + Trent Rackus + Stu Turner + Gmod Ivy Bar/Lounge, Sydney. 8:30pm. $35.

THURSDAY AUGUST 29

Deep Impressions

Jerome Isma-Ae

Eric Cloutier

fter impressing on his maiden visit to Australia about a year ago, the bald assassin, NYC’s Eric Cloutier, will headline Strange Signals on Saturday September 21 at an as-yet-unrevealed – more sensationalist writers would use the word ‘secret’ – location. Mentored by the legendary Dan Bell, Cloutier started spinning records in the mid-’90s, and quickly established himself in club circles, earning a residency at legendary techno night The Bunker. Cloutier has since cemented his status among the club cognoscenti, releasing his own material on fledgling label Studio R and DJing all across Europe as well as at Japan’s renowned Labyrinth Festival. A Deep Impressions source close to the party described Cloutier well: “When Cloutier unleashes, he’s very formidable. Not flashy, no gimmicks, just a solid five hours of sweaty grooves.” Anyone who saw him last year will know these are sweaty grooves of the highest order. With the promoters supplying Cloutier the essentials – that is, “a bottle of whiskey and as long as he damn well wants to play” – this promises to be a gig you do not want to miss. Presale tickets are available online, and with capacity limited to 150 people, you do not want to delay in procuring one. Esteemed French veteran DJ Pepperpot, the nom de plume of Gregory Lambert, will spin at the Spice Cellar this Saturday August 31. Pepperpot is a specialist DJ who is a resident – and indeed curator – at Paris’ renowned clubspot, Rex Club. He’s been peppering clubbers since the early ’90s, and has played alongside many of the international house and techno A-list, honing his own distinct style in the process. Anyone unaware of the man ought to seek out some of his podcasts online, all of which showcase why the Frenchman is deserving of a full club in Sydney this weekend. With his impending Sydney performance at Strange Fruit now only a month away, fans of Belgian producer and DJ Peter Van Hoesen have another reason to rejoice (or indulge in more muted celebration). Van Hoesen will release a recording of a live performance on Tresor Records in October entitled – wait for it – Life Performance. Recorded at a specially curated Time To Express label night at Tresor on July 19, the release showcases Van Hoesen’s increased penchant for live improvisation, and the sculpting of his sound in real time. “Making the tracks with the setup in mind as opposed to transposing tracks made in the studio into a live setting is much easier, and much more fun,” Van Hoesen said. “You can improvise with it freely – and for me that [improvisation] was most important – then decide, in that specific moment, about its tonality and its synthesis. I don’t work with samples often. If you use samples, there’s no way to really sculpt them – not just from a technical perspective, but also from an artist viewpoint. There’s a freshness and directness you get from being able to interact with the music and audience on a much deeper level than normal.” Van Hoesen headlines the next international installment of weekly bash Strange Fruit

at the Abercrombie Hotel on Saturday September 28. The countdown to December’s Subsonic Music Festival is in full swing and organisers have announced the next in their offshoot Subclub series, which will occur on Saturday September 7 and be headlined by Germany’s Chris Schwarzwälder, a reputable DJ (and chef!). A rising talent, Schwarzwälder has made his mark with remixes and co-productions, most prominently for/with Berlin club heroes Nu and Acid Pauli, who played a memorable back-to-back set at last year’s Subsonic. Fresh from delivering a rollicking set at this year’s Fusion Festival in Berlin – which is available on Soundcloud as a consolation prize for everyone who was stranded anywhere but Berlin at the end of June – Schwarzwälder will soon be introducing Sydneysiders to his distinct sound. A lengthy lineup of support DJs has been assembled, featuring another DJ/chef (or at least a cafe all-rounder) in Jordan Deck and Subsonic head honcho Marcotix.

LOOKING DEEPER

SATURDAY AUGUST 31

Pepperpot

Pepperpot The Spice Cellar

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 1 Jus-Ed The Abercrombie

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 21 Eric Cloutier Venue TBA

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 28 Peter Van Hoesen The Abercrombie

Deep Impressions: electronica manifesto and occasional club brand. Contact through deep.impressions@yahoo.com thebrag.com

BRAG :: 527 :: 26:08:13 :: 41

snap

PICS :: HL

twist & shout

outer bass

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up all night out all week . . .

16:08:13 :: Goodgod Small Club :: 53-55 Liverpool St Chinatown 8084 0587

goldfish

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midnight juggernauts

PICS :: AM

17:08:13 :: Brighton Up Bar :: 1/77 Oxford St Darlinghurst 9361 3379

19:07:13 :: The Goldfish :: 111 Darlinghurst Rd Potts Point 8354 6630

dj helena

PICS :: AM

16:08:13 :: Metro Theatre :: 624 George St Sydney 9550 3666

giraffage

PICS :: HL

17:08:13 :: Marquee :: Star City Pyrmont 9657 7737

17:08:13 :: Chinese Laundry :: 111 Sussex St Sydney 8295 9999 42 :: BRAG :: 527 :: 26:08:13

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